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agustdiv1ne · 1 year ago

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❦°｡9:51 p.m. (m) — choi soobin

genre: dark content, mdni!!! ageless blogs dni!!!! serial killer!soobin, fem!potential victim!reader, thriller, light smսt

wc: 3.5k

warnings: talks of murder (but none actually occur), slight coercion, oral (m receiving), drugging, violence, weapons, blood, general insanity....

this fic contains dark content. please heed all warnings above and read at your own discretion.

soobin’s favorite color is red.

he’s quite obsessed with it, really. his favorite shirt is a maroon button-up, his phone case has crimson details…he tries to look for it everywhere when he’s out and about, he surrounds himself with it at home. his favorite time of year is when the humid summer fades into mild autumn, as the change in seasons brings with it ruby leaves and dying trees — oh, death. in addition to the fiery shade, soobin finds himself enamored with eternal rest. it’s just oh so freeing, an end of a cycle, a path to purity. there is nothing more pure than the act of shedding the mortal skin to find a higher meaning — to be reborn.

soobin likes helping people be reborn just as much as he likes the color red.

but only people he finds worthy: the innocent ones, the ones who have placed too much trust in a world that is wrought with cruelty and had their hearts ripped out in the process. those are the ones who need saving, he thinks, and he finds great happiness, an overwhelming sense of pride, in being the one who can save them. it’s fate that brings him into these people’s lives, after all. something has chosen him to guide these people towards a greater path, to help the weak and downtrodden, the ones looking for betterment. there is no doubt in his mind that would cause him to think otherwise.

he adores helping people, but he wishes that they were just a bit more sympathetic to his cause. it’s not as if he enjoys hurting them, but his methods are the only way that any of this can be accomplished. no matter how much he tries to explain, they always scream and cry and beg to be let go, they always try to run away even if they’re bound…they don’t understand that all he wants to do is take them to a better place, yet they make it so difficult for him to be nice, to keep his composure. they always make him resort to extremes — but at the same time, he can't be too disappointed when they struggle.

blood is unequivocally beautiful to him, after all.

the city has faded into darkness since he’s begun unwinding from the work week. soobin’s office job provides him with little joy and nothing to look forward to, so he often spends his nights taking walks about the city. sometimes, he’s looking for something, someone; and sometimes, he simply allows the cool air to soothe him, wandering without a particular goal in mind, just living. breathing. being.

tonight, however, the former rings true. it’s been too long since he’s last aided a stranger. his previous succor occurred over three months ago, and the empty, unfulfilled feeling within his chest has chipped away at flesh and bone until nothing but a gaping cavern remains. it’s time to fill that aching void up again. he loves people, he loves helping them. it’s the only thing in his life that makes him feel truly alive. doing this is as vital as his need to breathe, to eat.

as he continues to stroll along the fog-shrouded road, he eventually spots his next potential project: you’re stumbling along the sidewalk in front of him, sobs ripping themselves from your throat so loud that he can hear them despite the significant distance separating himself from you. dressed in a creamy white coat and light wash jeans, you look like an angel from behind. he wonders what your face looks like, fresh with tears and red-rimmed eyes. where are you headed at this hour — alone, no less? more importantly, what’s gotten you so worked up? do you need his help? evidently, you might. it wouldn’t hurt to check on you.

quickening his pace, his long legs begin to close the distance between you and him. despite his intentionally loud footfalls, you do not seem to acknowledge his presence behind you as he approaches. you should be more careful; you never know who could take advantage of your vulnerable state, although he is grateful that he is the one to find you. he has only your best interests in mind, unlike the rest of the selfish population of this city. you don’t turn around even when he’s finally a mere few feet away, so lost in your own little world that its real counterpart has all but fallen away.

“miss?” he calls, deep voice ringing out into the chilled air. an air of friendly concern is apparent in his timbre, and it’s not a lie. he really is concerned for you. “are you okay?”

your entire form jolts, feet coming to a halt as you spin around to face him — and oh, you poor thing. streaks of watered down mascara mar your cheeks, eyes round and bloodshot and glinting with tears beneath the streetlight above. your hands come up to wipe under your eyes in a weak attempt of hiding your current emotional state. evidently, it fails, gray spreading further across your face as he blinks at you, wrinkles forming between his brows while he waits for a response.

“i’m— i’m fine, thank you.” while your words are meant to placate his worry, your quiet, warbly tone is less than convincing. he decides not to pry too hard — you look halfway ready to flee as it is — instead opting to remain in place as he drinks you in. indeed, you look like an angel. even with your puffy eyes and kicked puppy expression, he finds you lovely, your voice soft and delicate like wind chimes. the overwhelming urge to wrap you in his arms, to keep you safe from the world, flashes through his body. he pushes the feeling away. he can’t scare you away if he wants to learn more about your situation, whether or not you are worthwhile.

“are you sure?” he gently asks. for a second, your eyes blink up at him, less guarded now. soobin is well acquainted with his effect on women, the softness he holds in his voice and gaze, the openness of his features that must scream trust me. he can tell that he’s got you when you toy with your bottom lip for a moment, gaze trailing off towards the side of the side as you decide to continue this conversation with him. you easily could have walked away, or even told him to leave you alone, but you don’t. you don’t, and he feels his heart pound in excitement because of it.

staring down at his shoes, you murmur, “yeah, it’s just— it’s stupid, actually, nevermind.”

“well, it surely can’t be that stupid if it made you cry.” and your upset mask cracks just the slightest bit. so pretty. so, so pretty. your smile causes every single nerve ending in his body to tingle. a smile forms on his own face, and something in the air between you changes in that moment. a mutual understanding that you won’t be explaining the reason behind your tears right now, but some company would be nice.

a convenience store lies maybe twenty feet up in the road, and he falls into step with you once you ask if he’d like to grab something to eat there. he quickly learns that you prefer the veggie triangle kimbap over any other flavor and that you have a borderline strange obsession with banana milk, but he still hasn’t learned your name. as you continue talking, the realization eats at him. he likes you, he thinks that you’re sweet and kind — too kind for this world. you deserve better. if he continues to get close to you, maybe you’ll be understanding enough to accept what he’s trying to do here. soobin can be quite patient, after all, and you seem more than worth his time. however, his first step in this plan is to learn your name.

leaning against the counter next to him, you beat him to the punch. “i never got your name.”

fuck, your voice sings so prettily in his ears, and you look so shy, so demure just asking that. how sweet you are. all he wants to do is wrap you up and protect you, hold you close and shield you from everything terrible. instead, he swallows down a mouthful of ramen and gives you a charming smile. “soobin. choi soobin.”

“that’s a nice name,” you say, innocent eyes peering up at him. the redness has receded to the edges of your scleras, the puffiness of your face slightly calmed down. he’s made you feel better, but he knows he can eliminate all sorrow from your life, if you’ll allow him to.

“i’m sure yours is prettier,” he says, voice trailing off at the end. with a playful roll your eyes, you provide your own, and his grin grows wider. “ah, i was right.”

the flustered press of your lips is enough to tell him that his plan is working so far. your naivety is endearing to him. it makes everything easier — even better, when he asks to walk you home after citing potential danger, you accept without a single hint of doubt, eyes wide as you comment that you hadn’t thought of that. so sweet, so trusting. no one else will be able to hurt you now that he has set his sights on you.

“would you…like to come in?” you ask as soon as you reach your building, shyness returning in full force. hope drips from each word, your fingers nervously fidgeting at your sides. he can’t help but accept your offer. he’d honestly be a fool not to.

your apartment is a modest one-bedroom with a small living room, a living room in which he finds himself in as you busy yourself in the kitchen. trying not to stare too hard at your form over the small island that separates the two rooms, he busies himself with picking at a loose thread on the couch. for some reason, nerves eat at his stomach, festering there like a swarm of wasps. he’s never had someone invite him into their home so early on. this is new, different — he’s not sure what to do with himself.

“could i offer you some water? or tea?” you call. he swivels his head to find you looking at him while waving a teapot in the air. the moment you realize what you are doing, you drop your arm, your free hand coming up to scratch your cheek.

holding back a chuckle, he offers a kind nod. “tea sounds wonderful, thank you.”

this seems like the correct choice, if your wide grin is anything to go by. would you look the same if he tells you what he plans with you? would you understand? he’s not sure yet, but he will learn with time. so far, you’re his favorite, even if he’s known you for less than an hour. you are the closest to being untainted. perhaps it’s a selfish desire, but keeping you around for a bit longer than the others wouldn’t be so bad. he ponders if he should just take you with him now just as he did with all the others. he’s got a packet of pills in his trouser pocket waiting to be used, it would almost be too easy to slip one into your drink given your acute lack of awareness. at the same time, he has learned from his past mistakes; patience will bring his plan to fruition. this is just the beginning.

a mug of tea appears before his eyes, and he swallows down a flinch before he’s reaching out to take it from you. your fingers just barely brush against his, nearly making him drop the mug. your skin — it’s soft, warm. he wants to feel it more, have his palms run over every one of your curves, feel your chest against his as he takes you…he swats those thoughts away as he shifts uncomfortably.

silence fills the space between you, a blanket over his head meant to suffocate him. he takes a sip of the steaming hot tea, a dark, cloudy amber in a pompompurin mug that just seems so you. the tea itself blooms sweet on his tongue, notes of honey and lavender coating his taste buds, his muscles relaxing into the couch as he continues to sip the liquid, eventually downing the rest. he glances over to find that you have shrunk into yourself, sock-clad feet curled up onto the couch while your hands grip your own mug close your chest.

“i’m going to go to the bathroom, i’ll be right back,” you say suddenly, placing your mug on the coffee table before scurrying off. the bathroom door slams shut, the lock clicking immediately after, leaving him alone. he stares at your mug. the item taunts him. come on, put something in there. mix it up and take you now.

he shouldn’t. he should be patient, but the opportunity is right here for him to take. you’ll be understanding once he explains everything to you. you’ll be different from the others.

so he slips a pill from his pocket and drops it into your mug, watching the capsule dissolve into the transparent liquid. the slight change in color and opacity doesn’t worry him — it’s not as if your perception is that acute. when the sound of your approaching footsteps forces him back to his side of the couch, his heart begins to pound against his ribcage so hard that he fears it may burst. keep it together. you won’t notice.

instead of plopping onto your original seat, you make the bold decision to sit down right next to him, facing him. biting your lip, your eyes flit to the floor, then back to him. an invisible magnet pulls you closer. once mere millimeters separate your faces, he pauses, staring down at the way your chest stutters, so close to his own. he should stop this — he just met you, but the way you trust him so easily is doing things to him that he’s never felt before. this twisting feeling in his stomach…it’s so sweet, and you’re just so cute. he wants to protect you. he wants to use you.

it’s unclear who commits first, but his lips are pressed against yours. softness is the first thing that he registers, then the uncertainty that freezes you against him. a hand moves up to cup your jaw, holding you close to him as he moves his lips gently against your own. slowly, you begin to reciprocate, lips parting to allow his tongue to slip into your mouth. slow, soft...it’s everything soobin has wished for in his lonely life. this kind of connection, this gentle intimacy that is now filling that empty hole in his heart that has always yearned to be filled. he has kissed others before, yes, but he’s never felt like this.

the feeling is quickly becoming too much for him, especially now that your hands are sliding their way towards his waistband. pulling away, he grabs your hands, holding them as holds your gaze. “you don’t have to. i know we just met—”

“but i want to,” you pout, wide, pitiful gaze burning through his as you slip off the couch and onto the wooden floor, your hands leaving his to rest on his thighs. “don’t you want it too?”

he shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but the sight of you on your knees between his thighs with a cute little pout gracing your lips makes him wonder what you would look like with his cock shoved down your throat, tears streaming down your face as you choke on him.

pawing at his thighs, you plead, “please, soobin? you helped me feel better, i want to make you feel good too. please?”

you might just start crying if he doesn’t let you — and he would hate to be the reason why, so he gives in with a nod, helping you unzip his trousers and shove his boxers down his thighs, revealing his hard dick to your eager eyes. your hand looks so small compared to him, barely able to wrap around his girth as you begin to pump him, lips wrapping around his cockhead and your tongue slipping into his slit to taste the salty precum gathered there. he groans, head thrown back against the couch as he resists thrusting up into your mouth.

“so good, fuck,” he groans, his voice trailing off into a moan as the pleasure begins to build, your hums against his cock sending him straight towards euphoria. suddenly, your head lurches forward, taking as much of him into your mouth as you can, your hand pumping what you are unable to fit. his eyes roll back into his head, staccato moans leaving his lips while you bob your head up and down, your throat contracting around his cockhead before you’re pulling yourself off with a cough.

he tries to move his hand to caress your hair, to give you some semblance of comfort, only to realize that he can’t. his arms won’t move, nor will his head, or his legs — or anything. wait, what the fuck? what’s going on with him? all he can do is sit there and watch as you continue to pump him faster, licking up his precum at his tip until he cums in weak spurts into your mouth. he can’t even cant his hips, and he can barely feel his orgasm wash over him, numbness spreading across his body. humming, your eyes flutter shut as you swallow his release. when you look up at him again, the glint within them has changed. darker, cunning.

“i know your secret.”

when he doesn’t respond — his mouth won’t move — your smile grows sharp, predatory. moving to stand between his legs, you lean down to his level, brow raising when his attempt to speak results in unintelligible groans. “aw, cat got your tongue? that’s fine, makes all of this easier for me.”

all of this? what the hell are you talking about? why can’t he move?

you seem to recognize the confusion swirling in his umber irises, booping his nose with a manicured finger before you’re turning around and reaching for your mug. inspecting it’s contents, you take in the cloudy liquid before your focus returns back to him, amusement apparent in your tone. “you tried to drug me! that’s so cute!”

setting the mug back down, you slink back over to him.

“y’know, soobin, i thought you’d be smarter than this,” you pout, sitting next to him and throwing your legs over his lap. no matter how much he wills himself to move, he’s frozen. all feeling has left his body, not even the sensation of your nail gliding along his cheek registers. “drank all that tea and didn’t even notice, you poor thing. can’t speak, can’t move, whatever are you going to do now? can’t kill me like the rest of them now…”

oh, fuck. you know — you’ve known this entire time. you’ve lured him into your trap, and he fucking fell for all of it, didn’t even question why you invited him in so easily, why you weren’t worried about a complete, potentially dangerous stranger being in your home. he couldn’t have planned for this outcome if he tried.

“you got too cocky, baby,” you giggle, right hand reaching between your legs and into the cushions, coming up with a large knife. “never thought someone like me would pull a stunt like this, did ya? isn’t it exciting being the victim for once? i just love the thrill.”

“and you know what else i like, binnie?” you coo, tracing the silver blade against his jawline. muscles melted into the couch, soobin can only emit fearful grunts as you dig in and break skin. blood bubbles up to the surface of the wound before spilling down his neck. fuck, you cut him deep, but he can barely feel the pain.

a snap of your fingers guides his attention back to you. “i love red, just like you.”

swiping a finger through the blood dripping down his neck, you bring it up to your lips and suck, moaning at the iron-rich taste. you’re the farthest thing from the innocent lamb he painted you as. you’re fucking psychotic, pupils dilated and grin so wide your lips may split at the corners as you climb into his lap, knife now pressed against his throat. he’s completely at your mercy — your prey. cornered, nowhere to go.

“i think we’re gonna have lots of fun together,” you coo, pressing a venom-laced kiss against his lips, the bloody blade cutting into him once more. “don’t you think so too?”

masterlist

#txt smut #soobin smut #txt x reader #soobin x reader #txt x you #txt x y/n #soobin scenarios #txt scenarios #txt hard hours #txt hard thoughts #soobin hard hours #soobin hard thoughts #agust.nsfw #💌 — soob

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le-fruit-de-la-passion · 7 months ago

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Two Hours - Chapter 2 - Shigaraki x Reader

After a little over three months, you had gathered a significant amount of information on Tomura Shigaraki.

He was smart, incredibly so, and an absolute genius with computers. He was probably the most hardcore gamer you had ever met and simply refused to lose a single match of any game. And, most importantly, he was kind of an asshole.

"Seriously? That's all the content you prepped for today? What am I even paying you for?"

He toyed with the greyed-out strings of his hoodie in boredom. "They were basically the same as the ones from two weeks ago," he grumbled.

"Well," you said as calmly as you could, "I could have prepared more if you actually did the lectures I asked you to do last week."

"They were useless."

"How could you know that if you didn't read them ?"

"I don't need to do something useless to be able to tell it's useless."

So maybe the jawline he hid under his layers of oversized black clothing was as sharp as it was delicate. Anyone could recognize an attractive jawline without making it weird. You certainly could.

"The idea is that we both work to help you, Tomura," you replied with much less bite than you would have liked. The look of superior smugness on his face didn't disappear.

Maybe the little mole under his lip looked lonely there. Like it needed to be kissed. That was a totally normal, platonic thought to have about someone you saw once a week and who did nothing but complain.

"I don't know," he grinned in a mocking sing-song tone, "I think you like helping me."

Ever since the afternoon you had spent playing video games with him, something had changed in your perspective of him. And he certainly wasn't the one who had changed: he was still very much a pain in the ass to work with.

No, the change was from you.

You couldn't remember the last time you had let anyone take a peek under your prime scholar's persona, much less someone who enjoyed it as much as he did. When was the last time you had gamed with someone? Told them about all your nerdy little interests without feeling rejected? Joked about something other than your thesis topic?

Poetry wrote itself in your mind every time you'd think of him. His skin was like cracked porcelain, pale and white, the marks marking his face doing nothing to dampen his beauty. If anything, it only made him more interesting, more enticing, and you wanted to trace each of his scars with the tip of your fingers.

You were going insane for a guy who had visibly never kissed anyone in the 3D realm, and you couldn't even find the will to care about it.

He stretched lazily, a sliver of skin showing an impressively toned stomach before it was covered back with black fabric. What else was he hiding under there?

Obviously, you hadn't gotten laid in too long. There was no other explanation as to why you'd feel so attracted to him. You tried to shake off the thought, reminding yourself that it was just a momentary lapse in judgment. But everything about him seemed to pull you in, a magnetic force you couldn't resist. Did you even truly want to?

"You know," Tomura said, his voice low and casual, "if you keep staring at me like that, people might start to think you're into me."

You blinked, snapping back to reality, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "What? No! I was just... thinking about your midterm paper. That's coming soon, isn't it ?"

He sighed loudly, slouching back in his chair, giving you the perfect opportunity to at least try to regain your composure.

"I don't know what I'm even supposed to write about. The teacher is so bad at his fucking job half the time I wonder if he's not some homeless guy the university pays to stand around and do nothing," he complained, and you couldn't help but let out a small laugh. After a second, like he had hesitated before saying it, he casually added: "You'd be way better at teaching the class."

You tried to hide your surprise at the unexpected compliment, failing miserably the moment you heard your voice come out as a shaky squeak: "Well, um, thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

"I don't say things to be nice. I say them because they're true," he retorted bluntly.

Damn it, you thought as you felt another pleased smile tug on your lips. Damn it all to hell. You couldn't let him dig his way deeper into your stupid little heart.

"You know," you said, desperately wanting to change the topic, "I could pull out my own paper I wrote back in the day for the class. I'm sure I have it somewhere back at the dorm. Maybe that could give you some inspiration!"

"Sure, just text me some pictures later," he replied, seemingly uninterested.

"Or we could go get it at my dorm now, and look at it together."

The weight of your words seemingly hit you both all at once like a 20,000-pound truck.

"Me," he stated, his thin eyebrows shot up in surprise. "At... your dorm?"

You had fucked up. You had fucked up so badly that perhaps your only choice now was to run out of the library, change your name, and leave the country.

If you took it back, and laughed it off as a stupid slip of the tongue, Tomura would no doubt take it badly. Very badly. And he was not the kind of person you wanted on your bad side.

If you rolled with it, pretended you had actually meant to invite him to a place with a conveniently lockable door and a soft pillowy bed, he might catch on as to the very bothersome feelings that you held for him. That wasn't a very good option either, but the lesser of the two evils was obvious.

"Well, guys aren't usually allowed in, b-but the security guy will let you through if I tell him you're with me !" you explained quickly, trying to sound confident.

The embarrassing truth was, you had never brought a guy back to your dorm. Fool around at some dude's apartment or in the back of his car, sure, but never inside your own private little space.

Tomura, on his end, looked like you had just asked him to go into an active war zone. "I-I don't know..." He hesitated, glancing around at every item in the library to avoid looking you in the eye. "Maybe just like five minutes? I have shit to do after, so..."

"Don't worry, we'll be in and out," you reassured yourself more than him, eager to be done with the entire situation, "It'll be fine."

---

It was definitely not fine.

The game was called Kira Kira~☆! Stories of Dormitory Love, which was a stupid name for an equally stupid game. Tomura was fifteen and he had discreetly bought it online using Kurogiri's credit card, because he had learned the hard way Sensei checked his account statements. If Kurogiri had noticed, he never said anything about it.

The synopsis of the game, if anyone could really call it a synopsis, was that you, the protagonist, were called to do repairs in an all-female dormitory. You'd go about screwing all the girls one by one as they'd throw themselves at your feet, begging to be taken with their round tits and perfect asses. Tomura spent that entire summer locked in his room playing it over and over again.

As it turned out, that scenario was much less pleasant in real life.

He felt the eyes of every girl they passed, judgmental and disgusted at the mere sight of him there. They huddled in little groups like scared chickens, muttering between themselves as they threw him worried looks. He glared right back at them, and one of them let out a small gasp like she would faint out of fear. Good. He hated it, he hated them. But to some extent, he couldn't fully blame them; he didn't belong here in the slightest.

Tomura's fingers held onto his neck protectively, his uneven nails digging as deep as they could into the skin. The pain didn't help; he was still definitely there.

And you.

You made it all so much worse with how nice you were to him, and how you laughed at every dumb thing he'd say, and how you licked your lower lip in focus every time you'd try to explain something-

He hated you for it.

"If you want, when we're done looking over my paper, we can play some Plus Ultra 2 on my computer," you smiled hesitantly at him, completely oblivious to how badly you were messing him up.

"I don't really feel like gaming anyway," he muttered between his teeth. It was a lie, an absolute fucking lie: he never felt like not gaming.

From the moment you had told him to fuck off under the rain, he had liked you. But you weren't any different from any of the dumb pretty girls he'd jack off to at night; at least not at first. You glared at him with fear and disgust, like you knew he'd spend the rest of the afternoon picturing you pinned under him and choking on his cock. And why wouldn’t you? No woman in her right mind would look at him and think he was anything other than a creep.

Until you did exactly the opposite.

You started smiling when you'd see him walk into the library. You'd laugh at his dry sarcasm and bad attempts at humour. You'd hang on to his every word when he explained the secret behind mastering a peculiarly hard combo, eyes filled with wonder. You'd look at him with pride and genuine joy when he finished all the lectures you had given him.

And suddenly, it wasn't just about how tight all your shirts looked on your chest, or how well your ass would fit against the palms of his hands. It was about everything else, all the cheesy shit he never understood and skipped in dating sims to get to the sex scenes. He despised how easily you had gotten him under your thumb, ready to do anything for you without even realizing it. He wanted you to think of him as much as he thought of you, more, even. You were an obsession he couldn't get rid of, and it itched, it itched, it itched- but not at his skin, no, much deeper, into the depths of his entrails and in a heart he didn't even realize he still had.

You turned back to look at him as if you felt his inner turmoil, a small pout tugging at your lips. He wanted to rip it off you with his teeth.

"C'mon, just one game? Last time you said you’d teach me how to triple combo with Present Mic."

"Whatever," he said instead, staring holes into the floor. Why was the floor so goddamn clean? Did girls clean their floors every day? Why was everything about you so picture-perfect?

Fuck you, he thought.

"Oh hey, Neijire!"

His head snapped back up. Oh no.

A few girls were sitting on an assortment of couches, watching some kind of stupid TV show. One of them replied to your greeting with a smile so bright it hurt his eyes. He wondered if all pretty girls gravitated around each other naturally.

The girl he could only assume was Neijire excitedly jumped off the couch, tightly wrapping her arms around your body. His lips tightened at the sudden sting of jealousy, at the fact that she could so easily touch you while the idea of holding your hand made him delirious.

"Hey, oh my gosh, you're here!" the overly energetic girl squealed. "Wanna watch some Love and War? We just started season 2 and the plot is so crazy-"

Then, she noticed him, and her bright demeanour fell slightly.

"Oh, is he... is he with you ?" she gently asked you, like she wasn't sure if it was safe to address him directly.

"Yeah, this is Tomura, one of the guys I tutor !" you replied.

'One of the guys ?' Tomura bitterly thought. Was he nothing more to you than one of the other NPCs you tutored? Did you bring the others to your dormitory too?

If you noticed how quickly his mood had soured, you didn't show it: "Maybe we could borrow the common room for a couple of minutes? I just need to go over some material with him really quickly!"

Neijire turned around to look at the other girls, the unspoken hesitation written all over their faces as they glanced at him.

"I don't know," Neijire softly started, "we just started watching TV. Maybe another time, if he comes back ?"

Please don't come back, was the implicit message under that sentence.

"No worries! We'll just go in my room," you said, and he noticed the worried fidgeting of your hands. There was no way you could feel as stressed as he did going into your room. You probably had guys in there every week, hell, every day for all he knew. What did you have to be nervous about?

As you both headed up a flight of stairs toward the second floor, Tomura couldn't help but feel some excitement in between the overwhelming sense of dread. Being in such close proximity to you, entering your personal space, stirred something within him that he couldn't quite comprehend. He had never, in his entire life, even gotten close to the inside of a girl's room.

'Toga doesn't count', his mind supplied unhelpfully. 'Toga would let a raccoon inside her room if she could.'

The moment you opened the door, it was dizzying: the flowery smell, the pastel pink walls, the books neatly organized together in shelves worthy of a magazine spread. It left a sickly sweet taste in the back of his mouth, and he tried to nonchalantly observe the room to savour every inch of it. It was probably the closest he'd ever get to tasting you.

The room was small, much smaller than his own back at the bar. A simple bed, a drawer, a suspended shelf, and a work desk with a foldable chair were the only furniture of note. As simple and boring as one could do.

But then as he walked in, Tomura noticed a few things much less visible from the doorway. Various trinkets laid around the room; a bag of takeout was haphazardly thrown into a small trashcan; a pair of mismatched socks were left on the windowsill, seemingly forgotten. On the furthest wall, there was a small but obviously cared-for poster of All Might, half of his classic I AM HERE catchphrase hidden by a laundry basket.

It was like all the girl's bedrooms he'd imagined but... different. Like someone actually lived there.

"Let me try and find that paper," you hopped away to the suspended shelf, taking out various coloured folders filled to the brim with papers. You clearly weren't kidding when you told him you saved every single one of your essays.

"You can just sit anywhere while I find it," you said without looking back at him, and his thoughts immediately went to the bed. The bed that you had slept in. The bed that you were sleeping in every night. The bed that you probably touched yourself in, and that he could justifiably sit in without looking like a creep.

He was going to go insane.

"I-I should probably just wait downstairs," he managed to stutter out. He could feel his face heating up; he had to get out of the room, and fast, or you would definitely notice.

"No no, wait, I found it !" you triumphantly exclaimed as you pulled out a stapled document from one of the many files. "There's not a lot of space on my desk, so we can just... sit next to each other on the bed and look it over?"

You smiled brightly at him, a tinge of red on your cheeks, unaware of the nuclear bomb you had just sent off in his brain. He had to say something to get out of there. Anything.

"People are going to think we're having sex," he blurted out.

Fuck.

That was unequivocally the dumbest thing he had said in his entire life. He was going to dump university and never leave his room again. He'd live as a hermit and survive off Mountain Dew and Lays chips until the ends of time. It didn't sound too bad, actually; at least that way, he wouldn't have to see your face ever again.

The look on your face stayed blank for a few horrifyingly heavy seconds. The silence felt deafening, ringing in his ears like the "GAME OVER" theme in an RPG.

And then, you laughed.

You fucking laughed at him.

Anger bubbled up inside him faster than he could control it. It itched. Everything itched.

Of course you laughed. You didn't like him, and you never had. You probably laughed at his jokes to get him to shut up. You brought him to your room out of pity, to mock him. All the girls downstairs were probably on it too, cackling in laughter at how stupid he was for thinking you saw something more than a scared-up freak when you looked at him.

"I'm fucking out of here," he spat out, storming around to open the door. The feeling was crawling up his arms, up his neck. It itched.

"Wait, Tomura!"

You grabbed his arm and he roughly shoved it away, almost making you fall down. Your eyes were blown in surprise, and perhaps, a little fear. Good. You should fear him. He'd never make the mistake of trusting anyone again. How had he even let himself trust you?

"I get it, I'm the joke. Ha, ha, you bring up the freak to your room, make him think he has a chance with you, and laugh in his face, everyone claps," he jeered.

"That's not what I meant, I-" you started.

"Is the idea of being with me that disgusting to you ?" he harshly cut you off. It came out sounding more hurt than furious. I'm so pathetic.

"Shigaraki. That's not what I meant," you said softly, as if trying to calm a wild animal. He wasn't having any of it.

"So now, you're back to calling me Shigaraki," he bit back bitterly. "The whole buddy-buddy thing was an act too, huh."

"Tomura, stop."

He looked at you now, properly looked at you, fury burning in his eyes, and you flinched.

You didn't look like you were having fun.

You looked... hurt.

"Tomura, I brought you here because I like you. As in, I really like you."

You were trying to bait him again. You wouldn't fool him twice.

"Yeah, sure," he snorted, voice dripping with irony. "That's why you laughed, right ?"

"I laughed because I was stressed out, I-I didn't know if it was appropriate to bring you here, because I'm tutoring you, and I didn't know if you actually liked me-" you rambled like a deer caught in headlights.

"You seriously expect me to believe that? That you were worried I liked you?"

"I laughed because I've been thinking about nothing but having sex with you for the last month and you're worried about people thinking we're having sex!"

The blunt admission caught him off guard. His breath hitched in his throat, his mind struggling to process your words.

"So you... think about me," he rasped out, a glimmer of vulnerability in his tone.

The weight of what you had just said seemed the catch up to you. Your cheeks tinted a deeper shade of pink, and you made an expression you had never made before in front of him. You were embarrassed. Genuinely, honestly embarrassed.

"And? So what if I do?" you mumbled, desperate to avoid his gaze.

"What do you think about me doing to you?" Tomura insisted. He was pushing his luck, he knew he was. But he had to know. He had to know if this was real.

Your lack of answer frustrated him, and he tsked in disappointment.

"C'mon," he taunted. "Where's the girl who told me to fuck off when we first met? Was that all an act too?"

Silence. I knew it, he thought bitterly.

Then, in a moment that defied all logic and expectations, you closed the distance between you both, and you kissed him.

---

It was messy, full of wet tongue and clashing teeth; it wasn't hard to guess it was the first time he'd ever kissed someone. But what he lacked in experience and technique, he made up in sheer passion, his body holding your own so tightly you felt like he wanted to swallow you whole.

You gasped for air when he pulled away, a single thread of saliva connecting your mouth to his. His eyes were blown wide, pale cheeks a deep crimson, mouth agape as if he had just witnessed an otherworldly miracle. Had anyone ever looked at you that way, so desperately raw and honest?

"Again," he let out a low, broken whisper, "do that again."

You couldn't tell if it was a request or a command, and it frankly didn’t seem like he knew either, but you immediately complied, pulling him back against you.

You guided his mouth to your bottom lip with your tongue, hoping he'd get the message. With precision, he copied the movement, watching you carefully for any reaction. You let out an approving moan and he seemed emboldened by it, deepening the kiss and wrapping his body over yours, trapping you against the wall.

When had his hand found its way under your shirt? You felt rough fingers drag along your skin, curious and possessive, grabbing at the flesh like he wanted to take parts of you back with him, like he wasn't sure this was real.

Knock knock.

"Anyone home?"

You both froze. Shigaraki looked at you like an animal caught in a trap, eyes wide and mouth still slightly agape.

"Move, move!" you hissed at him, pushing him off you. "Just a second!" you shouted at the door.

Shigaraki was still looking at you with the face of a confused child left alone in a supermarket. He wasn't going to be any help. You straightened your shirt and quickly combed your fingers through your hair before opening the door.

"Ah, Miss Kayama!" you smiled tightly at the dorm's resident advisor. "I'm sorry, is the TV too loud? I can lower the volume,"

"No, no, the TV is fine," she replied, peeking through your doorway. "In fact, I don't think your TV is even on."

You could have died right on the spot.

Miss Kayama tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, straining her glasses. "I was just made aware you brought a guest over, so I came to remind everyone that there are no visitations allowed after seven."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was seven already !" you stammered hurriedly. "I was just telling Tomura he should pack up." You turned around to give the man a look: "Right, Tomura ?"

Tomura was still standing against the wall, as unmoving as a rock. He looked as though he had been frozen in time after the kiss, like his mind had short-circuited trying to process it.

"Tomura," you repeated more pressingly.

The sound of your voice seemingly pulled him from his trance, and he nodded slowly, walking towards the door like an automaton. He bumped against Miss Kayama's shoulder, and disappeared without a word down the wooden stairs.

"I'll see you next week," you weakly called out.

He didn't answer.

Miss Kayama slowly closed to door behind her, her usually delicate features were scrunched in worry. "Sweetheart, what you girls do in your dorm rooms isn't my business, as long as you're being safe about it. But who you bring here is important to me," she added, her tone more serious than you had ever heard before. "Make sure you don't mingle with the wrong kinds of people."

You opened your mouth to answer, then closed it.

Was there anything you could even reply to that?

---

The next few days were not fun ones.

[You: Hey, sorry about the whole kicking you out thing, Ms. Kayama really means well but sometimes she's strict with the rules]

There was still no answer three hours after you sent the text, which did not bode well at all. Any time Tomura's hands weren’t on any kind of gaming console, they were on his phone. He didn’t go anywhere without it, and you'd gotten used to getting replies to your messages within mere seconds. You sent a second attempt:

[You: My TV excuse was pretty lame right]

You laid on your stomach as you kicked your legs against the bed, glaring holes through the phone. Maybe your Wi-Fi was unstable?

[You: We actually call her Midnight in the dorm, cause she gets REALLY cranky when anyone has lights on after that]

Still no answer. You felt absolutely ridiculous, a lovesick teenager waiting for her crush to give her any attention. He had kissed you. Or rather, you had kissed him, and he hadn’t exactly pushed you away. That had to count for something.

You sighed, turning off your phone before huddling in your covers and closing your eyes. He'd definitely answer by tomorrow morning.

But when you woke up, there wasn't a single new message from Tomura Shigaraki.

[You: Hey, I sent you pictures of the paper I told you about, hope it helps with your assignment!]

[You: Sent 4 images]

The day passed as it usually would. You washed your face and brushed your teeth, got dressed, grabbed a quick breakfast, and made your way to your morning lecture. The hours seemed to drag on as the teacher talked, his words going through one ear and out the other. And still, no text from Tomura.

The next day had come and gone without any more communications. Your messages sat alone in your discussion, unread. Soon, the weekend passed too, and still, no word from Tomura.

[You: Are we still on for tutoring on Wednesday? I can move it if you need me to]

To say you had been freaking out would have been an understatement. For as much as you tried to control it, you felt like a mess, barely able to go fifteen minutes without checking your phone for messages. Was he that mad you had to kick him out? Did he still think the kiss wasn't genuine? Did he leave the country to join a pro gamer team, just to get as far away from you as he could?

The questions ran through your mind like an endlessly spinning record.

[You: Just tell me whenever you can!]

Would he even show up on Wednesday? Would it be like the first time you had met him, waiting hours for him to come, except this time, he never would?

You grabbed your face between your hands. Enough. You couldn't let one kiss send you through a never-ending spiral of doubt. If he was there on Wednesday, then great, you would talk. If he wasn’t, well, you'd deal with your feelings then and ask the faculty for someone else to tutor him.

And if you left the volume for your notifications on at maximum for the next few days, well, that was nothing more than a coincidence.

---

"Hey."

The familiar yet unexpected raspy voice almost made you fall out of the library chair, the sound of your book dropping on the table echoing through the building. The librarian threw you a dark look you barely registered, your mind focused on the tall man with dark red eyes standing next to you.

"Hey," you hesitantly said, awkwardly fidgeting with your hands. When had you gotten so self-conscious? "I wasn’t sure if you would come."

He answered with a small grunt, still not sitting down next to you. Deep, dark circles sagged under his eyes, and you wondered if he had also spent his week barely sleeping every night.

"Well," you said in the happiest tone you could muster, "we can start by checking your draft for the midterm, and seeing what we can add-"

"I already finished the midterm," he interrupted drily. "I sent it in last night."

"Oh," you swallowed slowly. Your throat was starting to feel itchy. "I guess we can... start looking at your next lectures then."

"I don't want to," he objected. "Let's just go somewhere instead."

Out of everything he could have said, that was one of the sentences you least expected.

"Tomura," you answered with uncertainty, "I'm still supposed to be tutoring you."

"And I'll tell the advisor you're the best fucking tutor there ever was and this session was great, now, will you just shut up and follow me ?" he groaned impatiently, his right hand wrapping around his neck and scratching at the fragile skin. He was anxious.

"Alright," you said softly, gathering your things before getting up and silently following the man out of the library.

The walk there was not the comfortable, calming silence you had gotten used to around him. It felt clunky, awkward, the unspoken weight of last week's kiss like a dark cloud above your heads, ready to erupt in thunder at any moment.

Once again, he led you off the beaten path and into alleyways you had never taken before. What did you truly know about him, after all? There had been so many unanswered questions about who he was outside of university. What insurance did you have that he wasn't leading you to an abandoned lot to snap your throat and sell your organs off to the highest bidder?

He stopped walking so abruptly that you bumped into his back, immediately backing away in fear of angering him. But he said nothing, staring blankly at the sign above the building, the neon light of the word "ARCADE" turned off. A huge padlock rested heavily against doors that had once been painted into bright, colourful motifs that had faded into an unreadable mess over time.

"Tomura, it looks closed," you remarked slowly.

"That's because it is," he answered drily, pulling out what looked like a bent paper clip from one of his pockets, hands instinctively going for the lock. After a few seconds of fidgeting, you heard a distinctive click, and the lock fell to the ground with a sharp metallic sound.

He smirked at your obvious surprise, welcoming you in with a flourish on his hand:

"Come on in."

You followed him in with as much confidence as you could project, which was not much considering the probability of him murdering you in an abandoned building had just significantly gone up.

The arcade was much larger than it had seemed from the outside, and had clearly been marked by the passage of time. Though there was no light on or a single window, you could make out the shapes of turned-off gaming arcades placed haphazardly throughout the room, as if the owner hadn’t been sure where to put them. The walls were covered with wallpaper that had seen been days in the eighties, old water marks deforming the large flower pattern.

Suddenly, your foot caught into something, and you yelped in surprise as you felt yourself lose balance. A surprisingly strong hand caught your arm, steadying you back on your feet. You stared at Tomura with your eyes wide, heart skipping a beat when you realized he was still holding onto you.

"Thank you," you said gently, and he let go instantly, like the touch had burnt him.

"Be more careful," he mumbled under his breath, quickly putting his hands back into his pockets. "I can't always be there to save you if you're that clumsy."

Suddenly, somewhere in the darkness, a man's angry voice rang through the arcade:

"If you goddamn kids are trying to break in again, I swear to God-"

You froze in fear as a large figure emerged, dressed in a bright purple suit and holding what looks like a metal pipe in his hand. You screamed, paralyzed into place, but as soon as the man saw Tomura, he lowered the makeshift weapon, squinting as he adjusted the small round glasses on his nose.

"Oh, it's you," he said with disinterest. You tensed as he dropped the pipe to the floor to take a puff of his cigarette, the metallic sound confirming just how heavy the thing was. "The usual?"

"Yeah," Tomura confirmed, impatiently putting his arms on the admission counter. "Hurry it up."

The older man hummed, unperturbed, like he hadn't just almost killed you for breaking in. He walked to a larger machine in the corner of the room, and inputted a few numbers on the keypad. Suddenly, the lights turned on, their artificial glow blinding. Heavy wiring sounds echoed through the room as the arcades individually powered up, chirpy 8-bit music starting to pour out of various sound systems. The whole room had suddenly taken life, like an old beast waking up from a thousand-year slumber.

The man reached into one of his deep suit pockets, pulling out two dozen shiny silver tokens before slowly counting them, cigarette still tucked between his lips. He handed them to Tomura who immediately pocketed them, not throwing a single glance at the man in the suit. The man sighed, blowing another puff of smoke, before seemingly noticing you for the first time. His lips widened into a mellow smile, revealing a missing front tooth.

"Why, Shigaraki," he purred, running a hand through his short gray hair, "you've never brought company here before. Will you introduce me to the lovely lady ?"

"Keep it in your pants, Giran," Tomura grumbled, the warning clear in his tone. "Leave us alone."

The man sighed in disapproval: "Snappy today, aren’t we? Then again, when aren't you..."

Tomura went past him without a word, and you hesitantly followed, throwing an unsure look at the older man.

"Well, I'll be in the back if you need me, don’t forget to close up when you're done," he called out, picking up the metal pipe from where he had left it on the floor.

"Yeah, whatever," Tomura replied without looking back.

You followed him through the strange maze of glowing screens and bright cabinets as he moved forward with a clear goal in mind.

"So, um, who was that ?" you asked with uncertainty.

"Some guy I know," Tomura replied. "He owes me one, so he lets me play in here for free when the arcade is closed."

That answered absolutely none of your questions. If anything, it added more. Why would this shady-looking man in this barely still standing arcade let him roam around and do as he pleased, with nothing in exchange? What kind of weight did Tomura have in these backstreet alleyways?

"Oh... alright," you replied miserably, not wanting to press the subject harder.

"Stop thinking so hard, I can hear it all the way from here," he complained.

"Sorry," you almost whispered, feeling the embarrassment creeping in. Had you always been so easy to read, or was he just that good at seeing right through you?

"Whatever," he replied with disinterest, "look at this instead."

He had stopped in front of a peculiarly large machine, in a significantly better state than anything else in the arcade. The bright yellow of the cabinet, the familiar little tune that rang from the vintage loudspeakers unmistakable.

"No way," you gasped, in awe of the inconceivable treasure that stood in front of you, "that's an original 1991 Plus Ultra arcade cabinet..."

"With the original paint job and controllers," Tomura completed, absolutely glowing with pride.

You approached the cabinet slowly, admiring it like an ancient artifact from a museum. It might as well could be one: out of a hundred produced, only three were known to still be up and running around the entire globe. It was the stuff of legends, the kind of priceless gem most people would have to settle with only ever seeing in the confines of a laptop screen.

"That's so cool," you whispered, running your fingers over the worn-out buttons with reverence, feeling the age and wear of the machine. What was it even doing in this dump?

"You haven't seen shit yet," Tomura said with a mischievous grin. "Wanna take her for a spin?"

If you could have kissed him right then and there without making things more awkward between the two of you, you would have.

---

Unsurprisingly, Tomura was good at every game he touched: from shooting games to rhythm ones, it was like he understood the secret behind every machine, long fingers nimbly moving at the speed of light. He took great pride in every win, grinning smugly for each ass-kicking he handed you. And yet, you couldn't resent him for it; you were having the most fun you had in years.

It wasn’t just the games, either. It was him. It was the way his eyebrows furrowed in concentration when he shot 2D zombies, the way he'd mock you for getting a low score at the racing simulator yet always took the time to show you how to ace all the difficult maneuvers, the way he made your heart bump increasingly against your chest every time his arm brushed yours. It was all maddening, and yet you would have exchanged it for nothing else.

"Ah, shit, it's already eight," he said, bringing you out of your reverie. You looked in the same direction as he did, surprised to find a working clock suspended on the dilapidated walls. How had time passed so fast? "We gotta go," he added.

You couldn't help but let the disappointment slip through your voice.

"Oh, alright..."

Tomura didn't answer, long legs already heading towards the exit. You followed him like a lost puppy, looking around for the man in the suit you had met earlier.

"Shouldn’t we thank the owner for letting us play ?" you asked.

Tomura looked at you with confusion, seemingly perplexed at the very concept.

"Why? I told you, he owes me."

Without another word, he walked out the door, leaving you alone in the derelict yet brightly lit arcade. You couldn't help but yell out a "Thank you!" towards nowhere in particular, hoping your words would reach the elusive man. When no one answered, you walked out to join Tomura, throwing one last look at the strange room before the door closed behind you.

"Took you long enough," Tomura mumbled, putting the forgotten padlock back into place and snapping it shut. Just like that, it was back to being an abandoned building like any other, none of the lights or sounds escaping through the thick doors. There was something nostalgic about it, as if the arcade existed somewhere outside of time and space.

"Thank you for today," you said genuinely, locking your eyes into his. He obviously hadn't expected your earnestness, his pale skin quickly turning red as pointedly stared at the floor. "I had a lot of fun."

"Whatever," he replied in a way that made it painfully clear it was not whatever, and that was quite pleased with himself. "We need to hurry up, we're already late."

Late?

"Late to what ?" you asked.

"Stop asking so many questions all the goddamn time. You'll see when we get there."

"You're just bitter because I kicked your ass on the last round."

"I went easy on you because you're not used to arcade controls. Don't let it get to your head."

You could add ‘sore loser’ to the list of things you knew about him, you thought with a smile.

Whatever awkwardness had been there earlier had completely vanished, and you felt at ease walking next to him and letting your fingers brush against his. Of course, the kiss hadn't fully left your mind, but you felt like you could breathe around him again, like he had brought you both back to the way things were before the dorm incident. Maybe a friendship wasn't exactly what you wanted, but if it was what he wanted, you could respect that.

"It's here," he said, interrupting your reverie.

Much like when he had brought you to the arcade, at first, you thought there had been a mistake. This time however, it wasn't because it looked like an abandoned warehouse.

It was because it was the exact opposite of an abandoned warehouse.

The building was positively lavish, decorated from top to bottom with delicate mouldings and golden ornaments. The red marquis at the door shone with bright, warm lights, the entryway surrounded by a perfectly cut hedge and vases filled to the brim with red roses.

It screamed of luxury, opulence, and most of all, money.

"Tomura,” you started uncertainly, feeling fidgety at the idea of even standing in a 10-mile radius of something so expensive, “I can't afford this."

"Me neither," he shrugged, seemingly totally unbothered by the situation, "but I'm not paying."

He walked in and you had no choice but to follow, feeling somehow more nervous than when you had both broken into a building barely a few hours earlier.

If the outside of the restaurant had seemed overly extravagant, the inside was unfortunately much worse. The walls were all covered with those abstract paintings that cost an arm and a leg; the floors seemed to be made out of real marble, the kind with delicate gray veins and a pearly shimmer; in the middle of the room stood a large chandelier, from which dangled hundreds and hundreds of tiny diamonds. It was out of a fairy tale.

"Reservation ?" the maitre d'hotel asked, cocking an uncertain eyebrow at your duo.

Embarrassment shot back up into you as you realized what you both looked like. You weren't wearing anything peculiarly provocative, per se, but you looked so out of place when put next to the sea of suits and sparkling dresses that you might as well have been wearing a full clown get-up.

"Shigaraki," Tomura said plainly, like he was annoyed the man would even ask him that question. You were surprised a security guard hadn't kicked you both out yet.

The man's eyes widened. He muttered a few words of apology before turning around and almost running into the backroom. From the oval windows on the doors, you could see him hurriedly grab another man by the shoulders and ask him something. After a few seconds of back and forth, the man came back out, looking slightly nauseous.

"Of course, my deepest apologies for the wait," he stammered with a deep bow before motioning you towards the dining room. "Please, follow me."

The table he brought you to had obviously been carefully selected. The glass wall it was next to gave a beautiful view of the outside street and the setting sun. It was close to the live musicians, without being too close, and a little further away from other diners, like it was its own little world. It was impossibly… romantic.

The maitre d'hote pulled your chair for you to sit; you felt like royalty, if royalty wore shoes that had been 60% on discount during last year's spring sale.

The man left with another curt bow, and you attempted to open your mouth to ask Shigaraki just what exactly was happening. But seemingly out of thin air, another well-dressed man appeared, holding a large bottle of wine.

"You should have told me we were going somewhere like this," you whispered as the waiter poured you two glasses from the bottle, which, upon closer inspection, looked to be worth about your entire college tuition. "I feel… underdressed."

And entirely out of place.

Tomura seemed unimpressed, shrugging in disinterest as his lithe fingers toyed with the perfectly folded mouchoir on his plate, effectively ruining its shape. "You look fine. Who cares what some random NPCs think?"

"Still, this is...", you hesitated, glancing at the seemingly unending parade of crystals from the chandelier on the ceiling. Was that an indoor water fountain in the middle of the room? "...A lot," you concluded.

"You don't like it," he flatly stated.

"No, that's not what I'm saying !" you hurriedly answered. "It’s gorgeous, it's just... I didn't expect this for a… first date?"

A moment of silence passed, crimson eyes observing you with an unreadable expression, before Tomura said:

"Who said anything about a date ?"

Your heart dropped.

You swallowed with difficulty, finding that all your saliva had mysteriously vanished from your mouth. "It’s... not?" you hesitantly asked.

"I mean, it's not like it isn’t, but it's not a date either," he explained vaguely, looking away from your face, "it's just us, going out somewhere. To do a thing. Like the arcade. There's no need to make it weird."

"Ok," you replied, trying to hide your disappointment and the bundle of conflicting emotions this night had built up in you. One thing at a time. "Well, I like this... thing. Even though that glass of wine probably costs more than my entire salary as your tutor," you commented with the most honest smile you could try to muster.

Thankfully, the playful, snarky expression was back on the man's face: "All the more reason for you to drink it, then."

There was something pompous yet bored in the way he drank, like he had been raised on some sort of wine etiquette and still unconsciously followed its rules. You sipped the wine politely, afraid of angering some sort of wine diety by not properly appreciating what was clearly a great vintage.

"So, what made you choose this place ?", you inquired. "It's not exactly the type of place I expected you to frequent a lot."

"I asked a friend," he replied with little interest. "He said girls like that type of shit.” He licked a few drops of his lips, and you couldn't help but immediately remember the feel of them against yours in your bedroom.

Focus, you scolded yourself.

“Was it the guy from the bar? Dabi?" you asked, remembering the encounter with the ominous-looking man.

"Hell no, I wouldn't ask that guy for advice if my life depended on it," he scoffed. "He's some guy I know online. We play League together sometimes. He's alright."

"So, you asked a random guy online where to take girls on... things that aren't dates ?" You raised an eyebrow, feeling a smile tug at your lips.

"Stop saying it like that, and no, Spinner isn’t some random guy, I know him," he clarified defensively.

You couldn't help but let out a laugh: "His name is Spinner ?"

"His gaming handle is Spinner, just-" he interrupted himself, lips thinning into an accusatory pout. "You're doing this on purpose, aren’t you."

"Yeah, kind of," you admitted.

His lips stretched into a small smile, like he couldn't make himself stay mad at you for more than a few seconds.

“I can play that game too,” he replied with a half a grin.

Before you could say anything, a hand made its way to your thigh, and your leg bumped against the table in surprise. His palm was cold, refreshing against your skin which felt like it was warming up by the second. You barely managed to suppress a squeal when he squeezed his fingers into your flesh.

"Tomura..." you whispered, a mix of desire and apprehension in your voice.

The look on his face had gotten more smug, his eyes dark, cleared emboldened by your reaction.

“Relax, you're moving around too much. They'll notice,” he admonished you in a falsely sweet tone. His hand went up a few inches higher, sliding closer towards the inside of your thighs.

The chatter and music inside the restaurant had turned to pure white noise. His nails dug gently but firmly into your skin, his long fingers massaging the meat of your thigh. It was like you were back with him in your dorm room, your body burning like wildfire with the way he seemed to revere touching you. Time stood still for a moment, and you let yourself drunkenly sink into the feeling.

A foreign voice broke you out of your stupor and of the moment you were sharing, alarm bells going off in your head at the idea that someone had noticed you both. Tomura very reluctantly moved his hand away from its dangerous position, staring daggers at the intruder.

“Sir, Madam, would you like me to introduce tonight's menu?” the unsuspecting waiter asked, totally obvious as to what he had just interrupted.

“No,” Tomura replied, cold as ice. The waiter's eyes widened slightly; was it out of surprise, or fear? “Can't you see we're busy?”

“Of course, of course,” the waiter apologized hurriedly, taking a step back, and now, you knew for sure the man was scared. His body was rigid, holding onto the printed menus for dear life. You could fully understand someone being nervous when faced with a disgruntled Tomura, especially if they didn't know him, but this was something else. The man was scared shitless.

“My most sincere apologies. I-I would never have interrupted if I had known- Please do tell your father that-”

“Leave.”

You knew that tone. It was the one he had used when talking to Dabi the day you had met him. It was like the growl of an animal warning its prey of the incoming attack, giving it one last chance to run before it would pounce.

The waiter swallowed with difficulty, his terrified gaze stuck on the floor, and after muttering something that sounded like five different apologies strung together, he left the table so fast he might as well have vanished out of thin air.

The tension could be cut with a knife. Tomura's pale brows were furrowed in displeasure, the hand that had so fervently caressed you now wrapped around his neck. He scratched at his skin, rough and unforgiving, and you noticed you hadn't seen him bruise himself that way in quite a while, now.

You cleared your throat.

“So, your father-”

“Don't.”

His lips had thinned into a line, his crimson gaze lost somewhere beyond the window you sat next to. The scratching continued, practiced and mechanical, and you could see his pale skin turning an angry red under the pressure of his nails.

“Tomura…” you sighed. “I'm just trying to get to know you. I don't understand what you want from me.”

His eyes flickered back to you.

“One minute I'm kissing you,” you explained, “and you're kissing me back, but then you don't answer my messages for a week. And then you bring me to the arcade, and to the fanciest fucking restaurant I've ever been to, but you won't say it's a date, and when I ask anything to know you more you shut me down!”

You hadn't realized you had raised your voice before you finished your rant. You realized with embarrassment the two tables closest to you had paused their conversation to look at you. You could have dug a hole into the ground to bury yourself if you could. Why did you always end up feeling that way around him?

Tomura stayed silent.

Now, you were starting to get a bit more than frustrated. His eyes were fixated on your face, like he was trying to gauge something, but he still said nothing. You had poured, shouted your feelings out, and they had fallen on deaf ears.

Before you could gather the shreds of dignity you had left to get up and leave, Tomura finally spoke, voice raspy and deep.

“You want to know me?”

You could have thrown your hands in the air in exasperation.

“Yeah, I thought I made that pretty obvious,” you replied drily.

“Fine, then,” he said, leaning forward. “See the water fountain in the corner?”

You turned your head to face the direction he was looking towards, easily spotting the imposing water feature.

“There's some restrooms right behind that. The men's are fine, but the women's are better. Cleaner. More space.”

You wanted to ask how he knew that the women's bathroom was better than the men's, but you had more pressing questions.

“I don't get where you're going with this.”

He grabbed his glass of wine, finishing what little liquid had been left before shrugging, the hint of a smile dancing on his lips.

“Haven't seen anyone walk in there since we got here. I think it's empty.”

Why would it matter if the bathroom was-

Oh.

"Tomura, we can’t," you protested immediately, thoughts in your mind racing.

"You do what you want," he replied dismissively as he got up, his eyes never looking away from yours. Why was his stare always so intense, so enticing? "I'm heading over there. You can decide if you want to come or not."

Without leaving you time to say another word, or even formulate another thought, he was walking away, disappearing out of sight behind the fountain.

You couldn't tell if you were mad, confused, frustrated, or horny.

Tomura Shigaraki was a roller-coaster, and you didn't know how to get off it.

He was so profoundly different from anyone you had met, let alone romanced before. He was unpredictable, his mood swings constantly keeping you on your toes, but there was undeniably something you liked about that. About how unapologetic he was to be himself.

But you? You had spent your entire life building a fortress of perfection to hide behind. You got As on every assignment you were given. You finished on top of your class, in every class. You graduated with honours and three scholarships to boot. But was that you, or the person you wanted everyone to believe you were? When was the last time you did something stupid, for the hell of it? When had you been to an arcade with a friend and fooled around for hours without worrying about anyone else's thoughts?

You glanced back at the bathroom at the far end of the restaurant; no sign of Tomura. You knew he wasn't coming back.

You looked at your table, staring at your half-empty glass of wine, the liquid the same colour as his eyes. He was brash, and impulsive, and never let you catch a break. You thought back to Ms Kayama's words, back at your dorm. Everything about him screamed ‘bad idea’.

The choice became clear.

You chugged the remains of your glass, and, lightheaded but not hesitant anymore, you made your way to the bathroom.

—-

It took a grand total of three steps inside the women's restrooms before you were unceremoniously whisked away into one of the stalls, two hands crashing on the wall on both sides of your face.

"Knew it," he smirked wickedly, "you're a pervert like me."

For as much as he made himself look unbothered, you could see clear relief in his features. He was scared you wouldn't follow him.

"It's not like you gave me many options,” complained mockingly, his crooked smile contagious. “What was I gonna do, get up and pay the wine myself? I would be in debt for the next forty years."

"You always talk too fucking much. You need to learn to shut up.”

Dry yet increasingly familiar lips crashing into yours, closing the gap between your bodies. He was already a much better kisser than he had been a week prior: he was making full use of his tongue and teeth, tasting every inch of your mouth and possessively biting on your lips. You responded in favour, wrapping your arms around his shoulders to bring him closer. The ends of his hair tickled your fingers, soft and curly. When you pulled away to catch your breath, his pupils were blown wide, a drop of saliva making its way down his chin.

Beautiful, your brain supplied. The word you're looking for is beautiful.

"Can I…" he hesitantly started, and he was back to being the lost little boy who ran away from your room without a word, like he fully expected you to reject him. How could one man go so fast from self-confident and controlling to awkward and unsure?

"Tomura," you said, pressing yourself ever closer to him. His eyes darted to your cleavage pushing against his chest, and right back up, as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed to stare. The temperature in the room had gotten so warm it was dizzying, but you wanted to be closer, always closer. "I would not be in a restaurant bathroom stall if I didn’t like you.”

He swallowed with difficulty, one hand hesitantly gliding down your shoulder and stopping at your collarbone.

"I'm not going to warn you again, alright?" he muttered. "You can't just back out after this."

You grabbed his arm, firmly laying his hand on one of your breasts, before kissing him deeply. He let out a small sound of surprise, frozen in place. Then, it was as if he had awakened all at once, his fingers grabbing all they could hold onto. You moaned encouragingly in his mouth as the digits got rougher, possessively latching onto the supple flesh with the desperation of a starved man. When you pulled away for air, his grip on your chest did not lessen, instead being joined by his other hand. You muffled out a moan as he sharply massaged your breasts, the slight pain of his forcefulness unbelievably intoxicating.

"Fuck, your tits are so soft. I could shove my face in there," he rasped out. He was drunk off the feeling, off his own words, and you couldn't blame him, because you weren't faring much better. “No wonder that fucking waiter couldn't stop staring at them."

He pinched your nipples with the tip of his fingers, and you moaned. He looked positively delighted by your reaction.

"The waiter wasn’t staring," you protested weakly.

"Of course he was," he dismissed, twisting your hardened buds again to watch you squirm under him, "but it's too bad for him. I'm the one who gets to touch you today."

He pulled off your top so fast you wondered if he had ripped it. Nimble fingers took off your bra in a single try, and if you hadn't known better you could have believed he had had practice with this. You thought back to your afternoon at the arcade, how agile he was with his hands. How good they would feel grabbing your body instead of a controller…

Tomura watched the jiggle of your freed breasts with so much intensity and reverence you covered them with unexpected shyness, feeling your cheeks redden.

He frowned, grabbing both your wrists.

“Don't fucking do that.”

You let him guide your hands back around his neck as he bends down, and without warning, he wrapped his mouth around one of your tits.

"How are you so warm…" he mumbled against your skin, more to himself than you.

Through the thick fabric of his sweatpants, you could feel his erection rubbing against your leg. He was as hard as a rock, rutting more and more rapidly, and you wondered if he would cum untouched. While there was certainly something very flattering about that idea, that wasn't the way you wanted your first time to go with him. You wanted to show him you cared. You wanted to show him just how much you wanted him.

You pushed him gently, and he looked at you with dazed confusion, and a little annoyance, like an animal whose bowl of food had been taken away.

You gave him a small kiss on the top of his head to appease him before bending down and falling to your knees. You gently pushed his pants down, exposing boxers with a large stain of precum, the outline of his dick pressing against the material with desperation.

"Hey, wait, what are you..."

"Shh," you smiled up at him, "you talk too much."

If the restaurant patrons hadn't heard your hushed and whispered moans, there was absolutely no way they hadn't heard the ungodly sound that came out of Tomura's mouth when you wrapped your mouth around his length.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck-"

The taste wasn't as bad as you would have expected for someone who changed clothing as little as he did. The smell of musk and sweat wasn't pleasing, and neither was the lemon-scented cleaning product they seemed to have scrubbed the entire bathroom floor with, but god, was it worth it for that face. The skin down to his collarbone was bright red, his eyes rolling into the back of his skull, his lips opened into the first syllable of a curse he couldn't manage to push out.

His thighs started shaking uncontrollably, and even if you were certain this was the first time someone touched him this way, you couldn't help but feel some sort of pride at the idea of unravelling him so quickly. Unintelligible strings of words were the only thing that escaped his lips between raspy breaths, and he let out a deep groan when you licked across the thick vein on the side of his cock.

"H-how many times have you done that before, shit-"

You could already taste fresh precum on your tongue, and you doubled your efforts, determined to make him see stars.

"I'm gonna cum," he barely panted out, grabbing the back of your head savagely, "don't you dare fucking move away."

He was in too deep, the rapid movement of his hips making you gag, but before you could pull away he came, the warm liquid filling your mouth. You coughed, ready to spit it out, but he put his hand on your mouth, his eyes glowing under the fluorescent light of the bathroom stall.

"Swallow" he simply said.

He watched the movement of your throat with utter fascination as you obeyed him, the salty taste burning. He was already getting hard again, the idea of holding so much power over you clearly arousing.

He fell to his knees and kissed you deep, his hands back all over your skin, flickering his tongue against yours as if chasing the taste of his cum in your mouth. Maybe he was right calling himself a pervert. But then, you were also one for liking it.

“Can we… do that again?” he mumbled after a few minutes against your lips, voice strained. Strands of white hair had stuck to the sweat on his forehead, and you pushed them gently to the side. You wanted to say yes. You wanted to stay here forever.

But as the fog of sex dissipated from your mind, you were starting to remember where exactly ‘here’ was.

And exactly how loud you had just both been.

"Tomura…" you swallowed with difficulty, putting a hand on his chest to put some distance between the two of you, "there’s absolutely no way the entire restaurant didn't just hear that. We're in huge trouble. They're going to kick us out as soon as we step out of here."

Oh, God, forget kick you out, what if they were calling the police? Could you get arrested for having sex in a restaurant bathroom? Surely a place like this one had connections all over the city, hell, all over the country! What if they kicked you out of school? What if-

"They can't kick us out if we're gone" Tomura interrupted your rapidly derailing train of thought with a smirk.

"What?", you replied, stunned.

Wordlessly, he pushed the bathroom stall open and headed towards the furthest wall, bare except for a few ornate mirrors and one small window. In one surprisingly agile jump, he grabbed the ledge of the window, pulling it open enough for his body to slide through. He looked back at you from outside, a smug expression on his face.

"We can't just leave without paying for the wine !" you hissed, looking behind you in fear someone had heard the sound of his acrobatics and opened the bathroom door. But there was no one.

"Let them worry about that," he shrugged, "the reservation isn't under my name anyway. At least, not exactly."

"But-" you protested.

"Trust me."

It wasn't a question, but a statement. And deep inside your heart, no matter all the warning flags and unanswered questions, the abandoned arcades and fancy restaurant bathrooms, you knew it was true.

You took his hand.

#AHHHH FINALLY I'VE UPDATED THIS #thank you to all the lovelies who left comments on this both here and on Ao3!!!#shigaraki x reader #mha shigaraki #bnha shigaraki #my hero academia x reader

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marsbarsfrommars · 7 months ago

Text

alone with you (the only heaven I'll be sent to)

summary

She nods and simply says the only thing she has to, “I understand.”

“I knew you would,” he responds with a certainty that makes Avar's heart seize.

or, in a quiet moment post-chapter 53, avar finds out about elzar almost dying on grizal

read

under the cut or on ao3 for better formatting

notes

first of all, this is dedicated to the person who headcannoned that elzar has burn scars on his hands from crashing his vector on grizal. I've tried, but I can't find their post, so if anyone knows whose post I'm talking about, please comment so I can tag them here.

edit: it's the lovely @ledalausnows and you should definitely check out her posts bc she's super cool!!

also, a huge shout out to the thr fans on tumblr: if it wasn't for you I probably wouldn't have finished this. thank you for all your support and I hope you enjoy this <3

this is the first time in at least six years that I've actually finished one of my wips, so while I'm a little proud of this, the quality might be questionable. my perfectionism made me proof read this so many times I could probably recite it from memory so I hope this is readable and I fixed all major mistakes. anyways, I hope you enjoy this

also, english isn't my first language, so please just ignore any grammar/spelling mistakes

content warning for mentions of scars, injuries, near-death experiences and past major character death. none of this is in any way graphic but I wanted to mention it anyways

The overhead lights in Avar’s quarters are turned down to a dim glow, and it's quiet apart from the gentle hum of the ship's engines. The night cycle must have started a while ago, but neither of them had noticed; both of them were too wrapped up in each other. Now, though, they're resting. Elzar on his back in her bunk, one arm gently wrapped around her with his hand lazily caressing her waist, and Avar on her stomach, half resting on his chest, the fabric of his shirt soft under her wandering hands.

It's nice like this—peaceful. For a moment, Avar allows herself to forget about their upcoming task, about the possible danger the future holds, and just exist in this moment with Elzar. She feels more at peace than she has in months, possibly years. She slowly runs her hand down Elzar’s arm and intertwines her fingers with his, her thumb softly brushing over the back of his hand. The motion is familiar; they've held hands more times than she can count in those weeks since she escaped the Occlusion Zone, but there's something that makes her pause. It only takes her a moment to realise that tonight is the first time since that fateful night in the garden on Starlight Beacon that they've held hands without the barrier of Elzar’s gloves between them. Elzar wearing gloves is in itself nothing out of the ordinary for a Jedi; most of them routinely wear them as part of their robes, which explains why she hasn't noticed it before. Now that she really thinks about it though, it does strike her as odd that she can't remember seeing him without gloves even once since their reunion.

She slowly brushes her thumb over the back of Elzar’s hand again. The skin feels rougher in some spots. Avar knows the feeling of scars, enough of them are covering her own body, but she can't recall Elzar ever suffering an injury to his hands that would cause scarring this significant. She raises their intertwined hands to his chest, and sure enough, a thin web of healed fine-line and burn scars covers the back of his hand and wrist. An uneasy feeling settles in her stomach. What happened to Elzar to leave his hands scarred like this, and why wouldn't he tell me?

Elzar, sensing the subtle change in her demeanour, chooses precisely this moment to open his eyes and look up at her. And for a moment, as silly as it may sound, she feels overwhelmed by the sheer force of her feelings for him. She had missed him for years, and sometimes, even though it's been months since their reunion, she still can't believe she doesn't have to anymore. Avar is certain he already knows what she wants to ask about, but he doesn't say anything, waiting for her to take the first step, so she does.

“These aren't recent.” It's a remark, not a question. She knows Elzar will tell her everything without her having to ask. There are no secrets between them; nothing is left unspoken. Not anymore. The thought makes a familiar warmth bloom in her chest.

“No.” Elzar’s voice is soft, reserved for the quiet of quarters and whispered secrets after dark. “I got them on Grizal when my Vector crashed. The healers at the Temple did their best and apparently Bacta also helped a lot, but they couldn't prevent the scars.”

Avar furrows her brow. “I didn't know you were injured on Grizal.” She feels Elzar's body tense ever so slightly underneath her, anyone else wouldn't have noticed, but him and her—and Stellan, of course—have always shared an unusually deep connection, and now they're as attuned to each other as they haven't been in years, perhaps ever.

“It was at the end of the battle. We thought we were winning, but we didn't know there were Nameless on Grizal. I don't remember this part at all, and most of what came after is pretty blurry in my head, but Stellan later told me that he saw my Vector go straight down. I don't understand why, but I must have passed out when the Nameless appeared. My Vector caught fire when it crashed, and the cockpit bubble shattered. I wasn't wearing gloves that day, that's why the damage to my skin there was so severe. Ty pulled me out, saved my life. I don't remember anything after, but I know Stellan was with me.”

Avar takes a moment to process all of this. When she finally speaks, her tone isn't accusatory, there may be a tinge of hurt to it though. “Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't Stellan?” she asks. Before Elzar can answer, a terrible thought takes shape in her mind. “It's not that you thought I wouldn't care, is it?”

No matter what happened, she had never and would never stop caring about Elzar and Stellan. She knows without a doubt that it's the same for them, but she and Elzar hadn't spoken for a year at that point, and her relationship with Stellan had already been strained, so what if they had started to doubt her? Avar lowers her head. She's not sure she can look him in the eyes when he answers, the possibility of what she'll see there—of what he'll see in her—too overwhelming.

Elzar draws his hand away from her waist to gently cup her face and tilt her head up until her eyes meet his again. His gaze is earnest and there's an urgency in it—he needs her to believe what he says next. She already knows she will before he can utter a single word because she trusts him implicitly, and she knows that trust is mutual.

“No, I never thought that, I promise.” He pauses for a second and takes a deep breath, “And I know that Stellan didn't either.”

Avar lets out a shuddering breath and tries to quell her bubbling emotions, which threaten to spill over at his words. Even so, her voice sounds a little shaky when she asks, “Are you sure?”

Elzar nods sincerely. “I am. Stellan wanted to comm you, but I told him not to. We argued about it, and he relented in the end.”

The sheer relief she feels at his reassurance is dampened by one burning question, but she doesn't have to ask for him to tell her.

“I wanted you to know, I really did, but you were halfway across the galaxy fighting the Drengir and I didn't want you to be distracted.” He briefly averts his eyes, as if he's unsure about his next sentence, before he says, “I thought if you found out, you'd want to come see me, but we both know you couldn't have, and I didn't want to make it harder on you.”

Part of her wants to argue, wants to protest that she would have come if only she had known. But Elzar is right; she couldn't have. Still, she wishes someone had told her. But of course he wouldn't want that, she should have known. Elzar tends to view himself as selfish, but she has always known him to put the wellbeing of others, particularly hers and Stellans, above his own.

“And later?” she prompts gently. It's certainly not a conversation either of them had expected to have tonight, and she never wants to push him, but they've spent so much time keeping things to themselves in fear of crossing a line that hardly existed in the first place, and what good did it do them?

“As bizarre as it sounds, almost dying wasn't the worst experience I had that week.” Now it's his voice that sounds shaky. The experience has clearly affected him more than he's currently letting on, understandably so, and Avar sends a burst of warmth through the Force.

“When I was fully healed, everything was still so chaotic after Valo and Grizal, and there was so much going on that it just didn't seem that important.” Avar hates that he thinks that way but doesn't interrupt him; there will be time for reassurance later. “I got used to the scars fairly quickly, and even though they should be a constant reminder, I hardly think about it now. And I don't wish to. I've made my peace with everything that happened and everything I did then, I truly did, but I still don't like to remember it.”

Avar understands, of course she does. Enough bad things have happened to her in these last few years that she's made peace with, as is the Jedi way, but still doesn't like to think of. They're the same in that way. She nods and simply says the only thing she has to, “I understand.”

“I knew you would,” he responds with a certainty that makes Avar's heart seize.

There's a pause in their conversation then, both of them processing and coming to terms with what was and what hasn't yet been said. Avar is the one to break it when she says, “Please never do that again.”

Elzar quirks an eyebrow, the tension caused by their conversation slowly melting away. It seems he has decided that the heavy part of their conversation is over, which Avar truly doesn't mind. “Which part? Almost dying or not telling you about it?”

“Oh, do shut up,” Avar says, but there's no heat to it, just affectionate warmth.

Elzar laughs softly and pulls her down for a gentle kiss. Far too soon, Avar pulls away again and cups his face with her free hand, her thumb gently stroking his cheek. This time it's her who needs him to believe her next words. Her voice is soft yet insistent when she says, “I care about you, El. I don't want you to get hurt. And if you do, I want to be by your side if it's in any way possible. And even if I can't be, I want to at least know, please.”

Elzar nods, every trace of playfulness gone from his face and replaced by sincerity. “I know, and I promise you, the next time anything of the sort happens to me, I will tell you.”

Avar nods as well. “Good.”

A slow smile spreads across his face at that and the tenderness in his eyes is almost overwhelming. Avar thinks if she had a mirror, she'd surely see it reflected in her own eyes.

Elzar turns his head and presses a gentle kiss to the inside of her wrist, and she feels the familiar warmth spread in her chest once again, chasing away the last remnants of distress.

She leans down to press her lips to his once again, their connection in the Force glowing with love and understanding, making her feel almost giddy.

The kiss turns heated when Avar slides the hand still cupping Elzar’s check back into his hair, her fingers tangling in the soft strands, pressing her lips to his with more urgency. Elzar responds in kind by wrapping his arm around her waist once again and pulling her as close as their current position allows. She feels butterflies in her stomach at that, like when she was seventeen and kissed him for the first time. It amazes her that time and distance haven't dulled the effect he's always had on her in the slightest, but then again, how could they? He's Elzar, after all, her Elzar.

They don't belong to each other, of course not; there's no possessiveness to their love. But they belong with each other; side by side always. They both know it and the Force rings true with it.

They break apart, eyes closed and foreheads still pressed together. The kiss has left both of them breathless, as kisses like this often do. Once they've recovered enough to open their eyes and ever so slightly pull away from each other, and Avar really gets to look at him again, she is hit with the realisation of just how beautiful Elzar is like this. She doesn't think there has ever been a moment where she hasn't thought of him as beautiful, but seeing him like this is something else entirely. The dim glow of the overhead lights is reflected in his dark eyes, his hair disheveled from where she ran her hands through it earlier, a soft smile gracing his lips. A sight that's reserved just for her.

Avar's musings are interrupted when Elzar starts to speak again, his voice still sounding a little breathless. “Avar, I…,” he begins but then trails off, unable to finish his sentence. It doesn't bother Avar. She knows.

She pulls their still-intertwined hands up to press a gentle kiss to his knuckles, then the back of his hand, then his wrist. She feels his sharp intake of breath more than hears it, and when she meets his eyes, he's gazing at her with a look in his dark eyes Avar can't quite place. Later, she will come to recognise it as pure, unfiltered devotion.

“Stars, Avar,” he murmurs.

Elzar seems to know exactly what she's thinking—or maybe he just shares the sentiment—because he kisses her again, his hand slipping under her shirt to gently caress the bare skin of her waist. It's an exquisite kiss, and for the moment Avar allows herself to get lost in it, in this, until the only thoughts in her head are how lovely it is to feel so at peace, and Elzar. Always, always Elzar.

“What is it?” she asks. For a split-second, she's scared she's overstepped, but Elzar just shakes his head and leans up to brush his lips against hers in a tender kiss that ends far too quickly for her liking. If it were up to her, he'd never stop kissing her, she thinks, only slightly bothered by the fact that she sounds like a character in one of those stereotypical Jedi romance novels Kantam and her used to read to each other for fun in their Padawan days.

#avar kriss #elzar mann #avar kriss x elzar mann #elvar #the high republic #star wars #fanfiction

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lestats-ovaries · 1 year ago

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putting in my two cents as an aroace hazbin fan to the whole alastor shipping debate (adding a cut below because this got long-)

before I start, it's important to remind everyone:

alastor is canonically ace and (semi)canonically aro, and that should be respected the same way we'd respect angel dust's identity as a gay man, or vaggie's as a sapphic woman.

"ace" and "aro", while also functioning as labels unto themselves, are umbrella terms for a lottt of identities. Some of which do include the ability to experience sexual and romantic attraction, in different ways and at different levels (demi, cupio, lith/lithro, grey, aro-and aceflux, the list goes on).

So, given all that, is it possible to interpret alastor as experiencing some level of romantic attraction, or sexual attraction? Of course, identities like the ones I listed above are just as valid as any other acespec and arospec identity.

So, what's the issue then? Right now, a lot of fans are using the breadth of aspec identities and experiences as a shield, to excuse them shipping him like they would an allosexual/alloromantic character.

Just to make it clear, that in itself is erasure. And I know that's a strong statement, and that there being such a broad aroace experience adds nuance to any statement you can make on that, but we have to acknowledge as a fandom that there are objectively wrong ways to handle aspec characters, both in the way we discuss them and in the way we portray them in fan works.

And before anyone says it, saying "alastor isn't real" or "fanon content won't change his canon sexuality" doesn't work when real life aspec people can't even look in a tag of a character that's supposed to represent them without seeing their identity erased. It's the way I feel attempting to engage with a lot of hazbin content, and I know a lot of my fellow aspec hazbin fans are feeling it as well.

So, what's the solution to all this? That's unfortunately kinda complicated. Everyone has a different opinion on what constitutes as erasure, what is good rep, how much benefit of the doubt we should give people, et cetera, and so everyone's solutions look different. In a way there also isn't a way to solve it, since aroace erasure is so normalized in fandom culture (not just the hazbin fandom; fandom culture as a whole) that there will always be a significant portion of fans who will ignore, erase, or otherwise deny alastor's or any other aroace character's sexuality.

So, to put my two cents on it:

My philosophy is that if you're going to ship alastor (or any aspec character for that matter), it's best to have an identity in mind for him to use as reference. For example, I think of alastor as sex-repulsed aroace, and I write him with that in mind. Whatever you pick can be a steadfast headcanon, an identity tailored to the story you want to tell, or one you want to explore in your fanwork, whether for fun or to educate yourself on it better.

What's better is that you don't even need to mention the sexuality itself in the work! Show don't tell is a great writing tool, and for alastor specifically, who canonically isn't aware of his sexuality, it works perfectly. Just simply creating with it in mind, asking yourself, "how would someone with [insert identity] experience this?" and going from there, makes a world of difference.

Just in terms of good fanfic etiquette, I'd also make sure to include it in the tags if you're posting it on ao3, just to make sure your readers know what's up and to help with filtering (I personally don't read any alastor ship fics that don't include the asexual or aromantic tag at this point). Bada bing bada boom, that's representation right there!

Since Alastor is one of very, very few ace characters in mainstream media, and even less aro characters in media period, us as a fandom creating good representation with him is really important, especially in terms of the breadth of aspec identities. We don't get much representation, so claiming he's definitively one label or another isn't productive, and hurts the community in the long run. Fanfiction is first and foremost an exploration of canon, so why not play around with what "aro" and "ace" can look like for him?

Case and point, I've seen some incredible ship fics that headcanon him as demisexual and/or demiromantic, and do a great job representing those identities. I've also seen some really good fics that portray him as sex-repulsed, and others that portray him as sex-neutral or positive. All of that is great, and again, even if it isn't directly mentioned: adding subtext, putting it in the tags, and even simply writing the fic with the sexuality in mind does wonders.

Me personally, I headcanon Alastor with the same identity as me; sex- and romance-repulsed aroace, but open to queerplatonic relationships. That doesn't mean fics that interpret him with a different aspec identity are less valid, or are interpreting him wrong. All of it is valid representation.

And that's not even getting into queerplatonic relationships, which is what I put Alastor into for my own headcanons (queerplatonic radioapple fic when). For that, please do your own research, but remember that queerplatonic relationships tend to look different for every couple. They can be poly, include kissing and physical intimacy, or look just like what most people would consider a regular friendship or regular romance.

So, can you ship aroace characters? Sure you can, as long as it isn't at the expense of their sexuality, or more accurately, the representation their sexuality gives to a historically underrepresented group.

That's pretty much it from me, please remember to support aspec fanartists and fanfic writers, and happy (early) aromantic spectrum awareness week for all my fellow arospecs!!

#not adding the aromantic or asexual tags to this #those tags shouldn't be flooded with ship discourse #so please stop doing that guys #also not joking about the queerplatonic appleradio fic #I may or may not be working on one rn but knowing my writer's block (read: seasonal depression) I won't actually finish it #their dynamic is so much fun to write let me tell you #hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #hellaverse

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crusherthedoctor · 11 months ago

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Sonic Stellar - Intro

What if you could catch the impossible?

What if you could obtain the unobtainable?

What if you could go beyond yourself?

It's a thought we have all shared from time to time. The allure is tempting, tantalizing, but some have more drive than others, and we have seen it across generations. Times change, societies change, but opportunity has always been there. Always waiting for the right person to seize it.

...

What?

The Emeralds?

No. Not this time. This is something else. Something more.

Surprised? Yes, you would be. I assure you, this is no fairytale. Let me explain.

Somewhere in this world lies a place like no other. It has its communities and landmarks like anywhere else on the planet, but not many people on the outside know about it. Those who do have been curious... and fearful. And you know what? They're right to be.

Beyond it hides a force. A force like nothing else that has been documented. Despite overwhelming evidence of its existence, it has never been witnessed by any living person, and it cannot be found through conventional means. Not without reason: the barrier is not designed to be broken. Should it ever make contact with our plane of existence, reality would dissolve into sludge before you could even blink. It is not a being... but it is alive.

The few who learned, who weren't dissuaded by the consequences, have tried to exploit it. Oh, they've tried... and none of them succeeded. For all their efforts, the prize would always elude them. Some of them counted their losses. Others lost their minds... or paid with their lives. It did not want to be found. And so it remains that way.

It's a lesson of caution, to be sure. To not tamper with what you can never hope to comprehend. If anyone were to try again, they would need to be serious. They would need to plan to the very last detail. They would need to be quick, and ruthless.

And above all else, they would require a very special kind of genius.

Like, say...

MINE.

------

It was over before it could even begin.

What was once a day of hope, a declaration of strength and unity, had swiftly escaped their grasp before they knew it. To think so much effort could have went down the drain in an instant, after all they had learned. Yet this was the fate that befell the Guardian Units of Nations. They couldn't have predicted it. They were simply no match for it.

G.U.N. had spent the past year recovering. Their wounds had left a lasting mark, and they knew better than to assume otherwise. They certainly had more work to do before they could restore their former glory, but ever since the rest of the world started healing, they too had made significant progress. They had come so close to marching onward, with no more weakness to shackle them. And today, the Commander had given one of his most passionate speeches to date, one that was sure to inspire these brave people for decades to come.

Was.

All of that seemed like a distant memory now, as the Commander collapsed onto his knees, his uniform tattered and dirtied. As he looked on helplessly at the blazing ruin that was formerly their headquarters mere minutes ago, the sweat dried up on his hands, and dripped down his forehead. His breathing was slow, and deliberate. He couldn't tell if anyone else was alive. How did this happen? How could this happen?

He didn't need to guess who was responsible for the mayhem. They were standing right there, staring him dead in the eye.

It was true that they had been taken by surprise, as uneasy as it would be to admit such a thing. Yet it was far from a whole army that they had been forced to take an unforseen stand against. With their training, and their experience, this would have been in their favor. A single, miniature entity should have been quick business, even if it were a robot of that very same description.

But this was no ordinary robot, was it?

Its speed was firmly its power. Throughout G.U.N's history, they had only known a select few who could match it. One of them even worked for them. However, it should be noted that they were also people. This, on the other hand, was a monstrosity whose sheer lack of respite flipped the scales beyond what they could have imagined. Many of them were not given the chance to open fire, and those who did had aimed at where it no longer was. Their weapons meant nothing. Their armor meant nothing. Their legacy, memories, camaraderie... meant nothing. It was no concern for this creature, if you would call it one. It reduced them to square one all over again, and somehow even further if that were possible.

It was a threat in the past. The Commander knew that. This was not a new face, they had seen it before. They should have stood a chance with that fact in mind, even without the benefit of adequate preparation. Yet, as he looked up at the azure automation, in its familiar, angular form... there was something different in the air. He couldn't estimate what it was, and he suspected this would not differ even if he weren't overcome with a raging inferno of inner turmoil, but whatever it was... it wasn't there before. It wasn't with it before.

Metal Sonic held its gaze for what felt like an eternity, as its left hand gripped the Commander's collar so tightly that it had partially torn a hole through it. Though he glared right back at the machine for the sake of his fallen comrades, as his hands curled into fists at the reminder of this injustice... it simply continued to stare. The Commander's breathing grew, and his anger followed suit, but it could sense the fear sealed within, and the vacant visage made it all the more unclear as to whether it was holding off from finishing right away so that it could savor this private moment of despair.

All of these competing debates in his head would soon subside, as he noticed the robot's right hand had slowly begun to rise. He knew what he was in for, yet his composure held on, despite the confusion, fury, and shame he had felt simultaneously. As it prepared for the killing blow, the Commander closed his eyes, for the dignity of not himself, but for his crew.

It was at this point, however, that a voice finally spoke up from afar.

"Don't finish him off just yet, Metal!" The merriment was unmistakable. Painfully unmistakable. "Let me have a man-to-man with him for a precious moment!"

It held onto his collar for a couple of seconds longer, as if it were reluctant to let go... but eventually, it complied without a word. Slowly, the robot released its grip... and threw him to the ground as if he were garbage. As it coldly stepped aside, allowing for its superior to take center stage, its gaze never left the Commander. It continued to stare right at him, like a preying vulture. After recovering from the sudden and heavy blow, the man took a moment to open his eyes, and in spite of knowing full well what he would see, he braced himself all the same. Sure enough, as if by magic, the disgust immediately began to overwhelm his senses as he saw...

Him.

The deranged mind who brought Metal Sonic and countless other tools of destruction into existence.

The elusive maniac who had been a blight on the world at large for so, so long.

That round body. That wild moustache. That devilish grin. It was him alright, no doubt about that. It was all too familiar... except for a single, yet incredibly significant detail: it would appear that the good doctor had decided a change of wardrobe was in order. As he proudly strutted his way towards the two, with his common toothy smile, the Commander was able to get a better look... and it didn't take long for sheer puzzlement to set in.

The goggles he had been accustomed to resting atop his head were not present this time around. Instead, his characteristic round glasses seemed to be mildly thicker than they were during past endeavors. Covering his upper body was a simple black shirt, buttoned all the way to the top, and tucked into his matching pants. Covering further was a bright red waistcoat, more than a little reminiscent of his more recognizable jacket: fancy to say the least, yet it remained conspicuously unzipped, revealing a small amount of the golden yellow lining from within. Fitting his outrageously sized feet were a pair of what looked to be comfortable dinner shoes, which had pointed black tips as normal for his taste in fashion, but were otherwise completely white.

Among all this, what really got the Commander's urgent attention - not necessarily for the better - were the doctor's hands. They were colored white, as usual, but not because he was wearing gloves. Rather, they looked to be... gauntlets? Perhaps that was not the right word to use, as they looked too compact to be sufficiently clunky for the description, so much so that they could tuck into his black cuffs without much cluttered space... However you would choose to name them, they were visibly made of metal, and they were clenched fiercely, in sharp contrast to his jovial mannerisms. The same mannerisms that had already stood above the Commander before he knew it, his shadow having consumed the other man's entire being.

"Sorry for the check in on such short notice," Eggman began, and not even a second in, he had betrayed his apology with an intoxicating glee that failed to match with the utter carnage that surrounded them. "I would have notified you in advance, but I'm afraid my plans have went along a little faster than expected!" He couldn't help but wiggle his eyebrows, as a not-too-subtle nod to his cruel joke.

"Wha..." The Commander had to let out a strained cough before he could start over. "What... what is the meaning of all this? What are you here for?"

"What am I here for?" Eggman shook his head, as if the answer should have been apparent from the very start, even to such lesser intellects. "To check everything's good, of course! Metal and myself have booked a much deserved holiday for... myself! We couldn't head off without doing a teensy little test run beforehand! Just in case, you know?" Eggman stretched his arms without a care in the world, as if he hadn't just sicced Metal onto the entire military. "No use going straight to Viridonia without a clue, after all!"

"Test run...? Viridonia...?" The Commander could barely choke out his words, as the after effects of Metal Sonic's prior assault had started to take their toll on his weakened body and mind. "What are you talking about? For what reason did you attack us this time?"

The scientist did not respond at first. Instead, after a pause, he began to walk clockwise around the other man. One hand was clasped behind his back, while the other opened up in front of him, revealing more detail of his brand new gauntlets in the process. Their fingertips, painted with the same coat of white as the rest of the device, were ever so slightly pointed, where you could mistake them for small claws if you were further away. It seemed excessive to the Commander, though for all the doctor's notoriety when it came to design, he suspected it had a purpose beyond merely looking intimidating. It was also noted that the palms appeared to have a small selection of buttons on them, though their purpose remained unknown. Perhaps that was for the better.

"Oh, nothing," he shrugged, and glanced at Metal, who predictably maintained his stone cold glare at their mutual enemy. He flexed his shoulders casually, as if daring for someone to put him in his place. "You did absolutely nothing, ho ho! There's no personal strife between us, your little band of merry men didn't cause any trouble for me this time! But between you and me..."

As Eggman continued to monologue, a rookie soldier had slowly crawled into sight, careful to not attract the doctor's attention. He had suffered some damage from earlier, but held on tightly to his semi-automatic rifle, determined to avenge his comrades. Eggman kept at it all the while, even as he stopped in front of the Commander once more. He knelt down, and clasped the man's head with one hand, to which the wounded individual slightly jolted from how icy the gauntlet's touch was.

"I couldn't let you interfere," he said matter of factly. He remained casual, but there was an edge in his voice. The soldier was creeping closer to him from behind. "I've experienced a lot in my lifetime, and now I'm putting all of that experience to use. As I should."

"You won't win," the G.U.N. leader muttered, only half conscious by this point. "You're just a lunatic, a disgrace to humanity..."

This would be the part where Eggman's anger took over. The part where Eggman would get offended by such a dismissal of his unparalleled prestige. Yet it never came. Eggman's smile did not disappear, though the corner tip of his mouth might have twitched. He took a moment to continue.

"Things are going to be very different this time, Commander." He talked as cheerfully as ever, yet it also sounded as though he gritted his teeth towards the end. "This time, there won't be any miscalculations. Allow me to demonstrate with..."

Without warning, the scientist leaped back onto his feet, swerved in the opposite direction at frightening speed for an ordinary human being, and unhesitantly aimed his left gauntlet with a sneer. Before the rookie could fire his rifle, a surge of electricity was unleashed upon him, courtesy of the gauntlet's clawed tips. The assault was swift, though the agonized scream that followed was not friendly company. Even Metal Sonic had taken time off from its intense staring to look to its right at this pitiful sight. Within seconds, the rookie had collapsed.

"Worm," Eggman growled, insulted by the brazen stunt he had just thwarted. For a chump to believe it would really be that simple... the great Ivo Robotnik would never be put down so easily. Not then, and definitely not now. People really ought to know better. He'll make sure of that when they bow before him.

"He thought he could get the drop on me? What a load of..." As he returned his direction to that of the Commander's, he was quick to notice that the veteran had collapsed onto the scorched ground himself. It would seem that the injuries were finally too much for him to persevere through. This actually seemed to disappoint Eggman, as his moustache promptly drooped in accordance with the frown on his face.

"Are you kidding me? He didn't see that awesome move I just did?" He placed his hands on his hips in annoyance. "I didn't even get to finish my speech! Couldn't he have let me finish BEFORE he passed out on me? Bah!" He raised an eyebrow at Metal, who stared back in return, waiting dutifully for any further orders, preferably of the cutthroat variety.

"I guess we were too much for this geriatric to handle," he lightly nudged the body with his foot in frustration. "Ah well, them's the brakes. I know another audience that's out there waiting for me. I'm sure THEY'LL be much more willing to hear me discuss the important things in life."

"Did you... kill him?"

Metal's vision turned to its left, and Eggman quickly looked up and straight ahead, as a new voice called out to him. It was not a voice that would have been recognized by the Commander, had he still been conscious, but Eggman's knowing raise of the chin indicated this was far from the case with him. This voice was a lot smoother than Eggman's, a lot younger than his... maybe a little effeminate as well, yet no less decisively masculine.

"Normally I would," the rotund one mused, as he looked back down at the fallen leader. "Less pests to spray, the better. But with this one..." His smile slowly returned. The idea was just too good to pass up on.

"Leave him," he insisted. "If he dies, then I won't care, meaning no one important will care. If he doesn't, he'll undoubtedly tell all that he saw, and then..."

"You know their best agents will come after you if they find out about this, sir."

The person who the voice belonged to emerged from the shadows. Whether he had been there the whole time was a mystery that only he and his conversation partner knew, but what was arguably more surprising, however, was that he was neither a human like Eggman, or a robot like what he was famous for. Rather, he was a platypus.

A white platypus, to be exact, albeit with a grey beak, as well as grey streaks that ran through his curls, which as it turned out, were slicked all the way to the side of his head. He wore a waistcoat similar to Eggman's, though unlike the taller specimen, his was buttoned tightly shut, and it was colored a disarming deep pink, in contrast to his pointed shoes. The sleeves of the shirt that he wore underneath were purple and puffy, and a single black glove was on his right hand, complete with a slot that remained empty... currently.

"Of course they will, Starline," Eggman replied, as he smugly crossed his arms. "Exactly what I'm counting on."

"I see. My apologies," the platypus bowed out of respect. "It was not my intention to doubt your... magnificence, sir." He seemed to have had some minor trouble completing his sentence, as he focused perhaps too intently on the subject of his field of vision.

Eggman simply grinned back at him, not dismayed in the slightest. Not openly, anyway, which was rather unlike him. For anyone else, his jolly countenance would be a sign of misery to come. For this new recruit, it was an honor to see in person... though he was less keen on being judged by Metal's frozen scowl.

"You still have a lot to prove yet," he started, as he clasped his hands in front of his chest. "It's not often I employ someone, not when my own insight is all I ever need, but I brought you along because I could tell you've got a talent! Let it be known that in this great wide world of ours, out of all the drooling imbeciles that run rampant within it, your knowledge and devotion elevates you so far above them that you can be confidently described as... average. So your contributions will serve my audacious and brilliant plan well! I'm sure you understand what a privilege it is to be recruited by the greatest genius who has ever lived, yes?"

"Absolutely."

"And you'll make sure to obey my every command, exactly as I wish for them to be carried out?"

"Indubitably."

"And what else?"

"...Destroy anyone who opposes you."

"And pray tell, mister Starline... who shall dare to oppose me?"

To the untrained ear, this would seem like a downright foolish question for a man with a history as his to ponder. Surely he would never need to ask, for he should know the answer before it could even register in his memory banks, nevermind all of the relevant associates that have only multiplied over the years.

However, as the doctor's roaring cackle echoed throughout the freshly decimated G.U.N. headquarters, it was all too clear that he was no fool. He said it with full intent. He knew exactly what he was doing. And Starline knew it too.

He didn't forget about him. On the contrary, he had him specifically in mind. And as the three of them finally began to walk away, with Metal throwing one last hateful glare at the now-unconscious Commander, the doctor's laugh never slowed down, and continued to echo in the distance even as the crackling of fire took over.

It was time to pay Viridonia a visit.

---

To Prologue, Part I...

#Sonic Stellar #Crusher's Fanfiction #Sonic the Hedgehog #Fanfiction

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mysadcorner · 2 years ago

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Hello! Just wanted to start by saying thanks for your amazing writing and sharing with all of us! If it’s not too much trouble, could I request headcanons for Jason Todd with a significant other who has chronic pain? Personally I’ve got endometriosis (it’s a rude little thing) and that causes quite bad pain, so I’m being a bit self indulgent here. Thank you very much if you manage to get around to it! ♥️

Jason Todd x ChronicPain!Reader Headcanons

-Credit to the gifs owner - Please be specific about characters wanted in headcanons -

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I personally suffer from CFS/ME which also comes with frequent pain all across my body (as well as many other symptoms) so it was nice to get a request like this. Thank you! :)

Jason's first reaction to you having chronic pain would be instant sympathy, but he wouldn't want you to think that he feels any less of you. Jason just wants you to know that he wants to help as best as he can while also feeling bad about the situation you're in but can't change.

He would do his best to try to figure out what you need, whether that be lifestyle changes that you may need help with or just simple things that you go through everyday. He doesn't mind helping you out and will be more than happy to provide the things you need once he's figured out what would help you best.

He would also accommodate to you through things in his own life just because he cares about you so much, and he'd never want you to feel bad about these changes as he's doing them willingly. He would even change his schedule around completely for you if you needed it, just so that he can be with you during specific times that your chronic pain may take place, or need help getting places due to the pain causing you issues.

Jason and his family know a lot of people, especially those who are well qualified. Because of this he'll go out of his way to ask around as to what may help you even more, or asking about certain methods that could make things easier for you, and he'd prefer to do this than just listen to your doctor without looking any further for information as even he knows that a single doctor can be dismissive over problems or simply wrong about things a lot of the time.

If your chronic pain was impacting you a lot more than usual he'll take some time or even a few weeks off from his everyday activities so that he can look after you full-time until you're able to do some things on your own again, although he may need to leave during the night so that he can continue protecting Gotham. He doesn't mind doing this and would prefer if you're honest about when you're struggling so that he can make sure you're as well as you can be in the long-term.

If you're ever feeling anxious, or just simply want company, to appointments, then Jason will go with you and will be more than happy to do so. Not only does this make you both feel better about whatever nerves you're having, but seeing how your appointments go gives him a better idea of how your condition works and affects you in depth which then enables him to aid you better or give you reassurance about certain things.

Jason is distraught on the inside when he sees you suffering from your chronic pain, but he'll try his best to not let you see. He'll spend his time trying to look strong for you so that neither of you get emotional about it and you continue to feel supported by him. He will open up to you about how he was feeling in that moment a while later once the pain has decreased (if it does) so that he's still being honest with you but strong in the moments you really need him.

Constantly being stocked up so he can look after you - Jason is constantly checking how stocked up he is on pain medication for you, mainly since he regularly buys some for himself just in case he's ever injured while out as Red Hood. This makes things a lot easier for you since they're always ready to be used and you don't need to worry about not being able to go out and get it for yourself when you're pain is severe. Plus, this makes him calmer knowing that if he's ever not there you have something to minimise the pain by yourself rather than suffering until he's able to help if you feel comfortable letting him.

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rederiswrites · 5 months ago

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Had a chat today with a friend that started with ignorant mfs on Facebook and ended with a joke about sex toys, but in between covered so much about current politics in the US that I got permission to share it here.

A — You know good and well humans can be mind-numbingly oblivious

RedEris — I do. I do. doesn't mean I have to accept it or think it's reasonable. lol

A — Good for a laugh, in any case. As long as it doesn't get a bipedal cheeto elected

RedEris — exactly I tell [Phantom]--because of course for them the prospect of another Trump presidency is really kinda an existential threat and it does scare them--that the thing is, if we could get actual progressives elected, then the chance of addressing the exact poverty, poor education, and desperation that's let Trump get where he is goes way up

A — Yup

RedEris — So while yes, politics is like housework and it does keep needing to be done all the time, it's…also kinda like housework in that staying on top of things makes it a bit easier? I dunno. it's a metaphor.

A — Shit's got to change, but if you change it too fast then half the people get all freaked out and tried to pull it all back to what they're comfortable with. Its a pendulum

RedEris — which is actually pretty much where we are WITH Trump. It's the strength of reactionaries, ironically, recoiling from the fact that actually a lot of things HAVE changed for the better really fast Trying to explain to the kids the other day what the state of mental health/neurodivergency understanding was when we were in high school The like, zero percent chance that we'd've been diagnosed with our fairly, in retrospect, obvious problems

A — It's really hard to conceptualize that while YOU may think all of these changes are good and moral and timely, there's fuck ton of people out there looking at it and thinking "What the fuck is going on? Who are these people? I liked it the way it was! What gives them the right?" And maybe you can ignore them, but unfortunately their stubborn, ill-informed vote counts exactly the same as yours does, so you're not likely to get too very far without them

RedEris — and now the changes are really speeding up, because people aren't getting entrenched and becoming conservative like previous generations, simply because we've built a system where getting older doesn't necessaarily give you more to lose, and middle aged people are still feeling disenfranchised by the system

A — Yeah

RedEris — So now you've got people of an age where they are seriously considering getting more involved in politics but who are decidedly not conservative so. We've got to get them to vote.

A — And allow them to vote

RedEris — RIGHT that's the other thing. These "decidedly not conservative" people have fucking work to get to. and quite possibly no car. and a kid that needs watching, and, and… assuming they haven't just been scrubbed from the registrations Honestly it's buckwild that voting day isn't a national holiday or a requirement. It certainly is in other countries and they haven't combusted yet

A — Well of course that's why there are major efforts to make sure those people can't vote If you can't win on the numbers, rig the system to change the numbers.

RedEris — it's amazing to me that they'll straight up say this

A — Empower the old farts who are so freaked out that their grandkid Julie wants to go by Michael that they forget about when they were crusty young hippies who wanted to stick it to the old fuddy duddies who were killing strangers in foriegn lands and poisoning the planet.

RedEris — like, Republican strategists UNDERSTAND that they have to win by restricting voting to their bloc they'll SAY it. it's amazing And then we have a system so riddled with disinformation and distrust that they CAN say these things, and not lose a significant amount of the vote or power

A — Of course they do. They can't change their platform. They'd lose their base. It's a house of cards. But they know they have a demographic problem, they can't win on a percentage of the population. Its no surprise that they've only won the popular vote for president twice since Reagan.

RedEris — I take comfort in knowing that that percentage is going down all the time. BUT we gotta survive this push of theirs first Because this push could be incredibly, incredibly damaging you need only look at how much of the current situation dates back to a guy who was president when I was fucking ONE to understand that

A — And before that, honestly

RedEris — yeah I mean we've still got baggage from the Puritans and Victorians, man

A-- Yeah, I know but that baggage is a convenient place to store sex toys.

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tokiro07 · 11 months ago

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Undead Unluck ch.196 thoughts

[Lucky Number Seven]

(Contents: speculation - power system/lore)

"I'll talk about Unbreakable vs. Unbreakable next week," I said, "surely it'll wrap up then," I said...I say it every few weeks, but I really need to stop trying to predict what's going to happen next...ah, am I Untrust?

Funny thing about this week's chapter: last week, I had the thought completely unprompted:

"Huh. y'know, even with their Rules, there isn't any good reason that the Negators are superhumans most of the time. Like just because Andy can't die, that's no reason he should be able to control the flow of his blood. Shen and Feng's martial prowess and inhuman strength are completely unrelated to their Rules, same with Billy's trick shots. I wonder if maybe their non-Negator abilities are somehow tied to their souls"

And I considered bringing it up last week, but it didn't really seem super relevant to what was going on, so I omitted that section cus I didn't want to get super sidetracked, especially with something that was just a wild shot in the dark

AND NOW IT LOOKS LIKE I'M JUST TAKING CREDIT FOR A PREDICTION I NEVER MADE!!! TOZUKA, YOU'RE MAKING ME LOOK LIKE A JACKASS FROM ALL DIRECTIONS!!!

Anyway...this is such a sick development!!! It's a subtle change, but the difference between using one's will to activate their abilities and using one's soul carries such a significant implication for how the power system will develop going forward

For one, the ability to manipulate, shape and project the soul changes the meta drastically since it adds a completely new wrinkle to how battles are fought, basically adding a new tool to everyone's kit in addition to things like Artifacts and teaming up with UMAs while also adding a potential new weakness to every encounter

I get the impression that souls are meant to be immortal since people get reincarnated between loops, but Ruin said that anyone he kills as a Regulator is removed from the loop, implying he can completely kill souls. But is this a unique trait to him, or is it something that anyone can do if they're able to target souls and he's just familiar with the technique?

Then there's the fact that Fuuko was able to impart Unluck without any tools, simply using her raw soul to go straight to meteoric levels. What can everyone else do to augment or circumvent their Rules? Could Chikara project his vision through his soul to lock down enemies from multiple angles without needing to worry about his eyes drying out? Or could he see a target's soul and prevent them from using their powers entirely?

Can Rip damage souls directly and keep them from recovering? Can Billy learn how to copy Rules better by witnessing them directly? Can Shen get a better read on his opponent by seeing their soul's intentions? Can Haruka harden her soul into armor OR harden her body since it's technically external to her soul? Can Sean make his soul Unseen or project parts of his soul to turn others invisible at a distance?

It'd be pretty boring if everyone just started generically making soul chains and soul guns, but if everyone is able to level up their Rules in unique ways, that'd be a great way to further develop the power system beyond what we've seen so far! I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we found out that Juiz has been using her soul to read peoples' visions of justice this whole time, and we'll probably see that in more detail when Julia gains Unjustice

As fun as it is to develop the power system, though, the real question for this chapter is who were those souls with Fuuko? I think it's fair to say that most if not all of us have concluded already that they're the previous holders of Unluck, who have presumably followed Fuuko to watch over her, but that raises a bunch of questions in and of itself

We know that Juiz and Victor never had families, so their continued existence between loops changed nothing (side note: this is a good indicator that Ruin has in fact been present since Loop 1 since he claims to have been created by God directly, which just further goes to show how hard he sucks as a villain), and that Juiz's eventual death led to her soul being incarnated as the child of a childless couple. From this, we can conclude that because Fuuko did not die in L100, her parents didn't have children in L101 as her soul was not present to be born. If these other six Unlucks have been staying with Fuuko this entire time, then that means that none of them were born in L101, as the chain of succession for Unluck could not be reset. How sad! Their ultimate fate was to not be able to live the lives they wanted even in the final "perfect" world! I guess that's still true of any given Negator prior to the current lineup, though, but still, that's tragic in and of itself, isn't it??

Secondly, though, what do they mean they chose Fuuko? All this time, I thought God picked the Negators based on what would cause the biggest tragedy for them: the world's greatest doctor inflicts irreparable wounds, the world's greatest psychic can only tell lies, the world champion ends his career by killing his opponent, a child drops his only living family from a cliff, a husband's only memory of his wife is her death...you can't tell me that these are because of the previous Negators!!! The Gods making those choices makes sense because they're both sadists, but the Negators themselves??? No, there's something more going on here

The Isshin family makes sense, at least, since their ability doesn't carry tragedy in and of itself, though it's possible that they're just maximizing its effectiveness by keeping it exclusive to smiths. I suppose the previous Untrust going for Latla also makes sense in that regard since giving it to someone with inaccurate predictions wouldn't change the trustworthiness of their conclusions. Unrepair is best used in the hands of someone with an understanding of anatomy, Unstoppable is best used by someone with good reaction time, Unchange is best used by someone with a strong desire for consistency, etc.

I think what it might be is that the previous users are also trying to find who can best make use of their powers in the interest of defeating God in the long term, it's just that God still decides when the power is transferred. I don't know what the previous Unlucks saw in Fuuko, but I highly doubt they said "that girl sure loves her parents; wonder how good she'll get with Unluck if we kill them." No, they probably heard her say or saw her do something that implied an interpretation of luck that they saw potential in, and didn't anticipate just how much destruction that she'd be able to cause

Bear in mind, there's no indication that Juiz ever executed any of the previous Unlucks, nor was she particularly worried about who would get it next after Fuuko. This implies that Fuuko's potential for Unluck is uniquely dangerous; the ability isn't a threat, she is, and whatever it is that made her that way is what made the Unlucks choose her

This brings us to the matter of the loop itself: why do the same people get the same abilities every time? My original thought was that either A) God designed the system that way for consistency so the looper would be able to make decisions based on experience, or B) once someone became a Vessel, the Rule was inextricably tied to their soul, so it would be drawn to them specifically if they were available when the ability next transferred. There may still be some truth to these ideas, but with the understanding that the previous Vessels have at least some say in the line of succession, it seems likely that upon reset, the first user gets it back and then deliberately passes it on to their chosen successor upon their death because they know it'll eventually lead where they want it to

This in turn further suggests that memories are carried in the soul. We've seen this multiple times, with Julia remembering Juiz's life and Sean/others choosing to be born earlier/later, but for the Vessels to consistently choose the same successors, it gives the impression that once they revert to being souls they remember everything and know what they need to do next. I wonder if they communicate with each other at all to coordinate their reincarnations and selections?

If nothing else, we can conclude that Remember probably accesses the memories present within the soul rather than psychometrically reading their past or storing the memories itself like other Artifacts do. I wonder if Remember's reverse ability actually erases memories or just suppresses them? I'm inclined to the latter, since one could feasibly use the obverse in a later loop and get erased memories back as well, and Victor's memories weren't actually erased. That said, Victor may be a fringe case since losing his memories completely could be a form of ego death, and therefore would be negated by Undead. Victor's not a very good sample for understanding the mechanics of Remember, is the point

I won't guess how long it will be before Tozuka revisits this concept and explains it in more detail, since again, I'm always wrong in these things, but I'm very excited for when he does! I've seen a lot of people concerned about the implications that the Vessels are responsible for the tragedies, and I would like that misunderstanding cleared up ASAP

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

#undead unluck #fouryearsandananime #4y1a reviews

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inaconstantstateofchange · 1 year ago

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Okay, your OC is a love interest, what does their first romance cutscene look like?

sassy i am gonna steal this ask so hard it was so good.

Silke (he/him)

Silke is aromantic, ultimately, but would still have relationship building cut scenes. He would have an initial companionship arc somewhat similar to Astarion's, although for very different reasons and with very different motivations. From the outset, he would be very intense, motivated - although private about the exactitudes of that motivation - and yet still companionable. He would make the PC feel heard and understood, sharing enough to seem just as open while simultaneously sharing little of true meaning.

An initial scene would require the PC's initiation - Silke would not make the offer himself. If asked about spending some time alone together, to "get to know one another better", Silke would blink, then shrug and toss a brilliant grin to the PC, gesturing with a hand for them to lead on. "By all means."

It would be up to the PC whether that talk turned to something more. Depending on dialogue options, the PC might come away with hints that there was more under the surface of this affable, yet reserved man. They also might, if desired, have the opportunity for a casual romp that would leave both parties mutually satisfied - provided the PC did not expect true love to follow.

Kelis (they/she)

Kelis's past would be a mystery to themself and the PC both, but they would spend the most time of any scouting party at any given location, souring through the letters, notes, and books for any clue that might speak to their missing memories - and the bloodthirsty urges within them. This would lead to a slight misconception that they were simply someone who loved books for their own sake, which - while not entirely inaccurate - would not convey the entire situation.

If the game had a system of gift-giving for companions, astute PCs would likely default to books and letters for Kelis, with a confusing assortment of approval levels seemingly based on nothing notable.

Kelis's first relationship-building scene would likely come fairly late into Act 1, and would be based on a high enough level of aforementioned engagement in their quest for knowledge, as well as a baseline threshold of approval. The PC would have an opportunity prior to a Long Rest to note that Kelis seemed to be missing from the camp, and either go search for them, or leave them be.

If the PC chose to search, they would have the opportunity to make one or two low-level checks to track Kelis, and be given several opportunities to return to camp and leave it be. After several successful checks, they would emerge into a clearing - of a corresponding environment to the current location in Act 1 - to find a an owlbear, seemingly at rest, but upon closer inspection merely gazing pensively into the middle distance.

The PC would have several options to choose from to attempt to break through Kelis's malaise, and the result of most would be Kelis changing forms back into their usual Dragonborn apearance. They would begin a halting conversation with the PC, ostensibly about several random aspects of the world they had come to learn recently, and asking the PC's opinion on several matters of religion, philosophy, and morality.

The conversation would end without appearing of much significance, but the PC's answers would determine in large part the path(s) forward for their relationship.

#voidling speaks #asked and answered #bg3 #my ocs #oc: silke #oc: kelis #dragonborn #kelis #durge

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rachellaurengray · 6 months ago

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Secrets We Don’t Tell Men

Relationships can be a complex dance of communication, emotions, and unspoken expectations. Sometimes, what we don’t say speaks louder than the words we do. In this article, I’m peeling back the curtain on 15 secrets we often keep in relationships. Whether you're looking to deepen your connection or simply understand the inner workings of our minds a little better, these insights are sure to give you a fresh perspective.

15 Secrets We Keep from Men: What You Don’t Know Could Change Everything

1. Social Media Stalking

Before we ever meet up, we’ve likely done a deep dive into your social media profiles. We’re not just looking at your latest posts—we’re checking out your likes, comments, and yes, even your exes. Why? Because it gives us insight into who you are and what you value. But don’t worry, we won’t admit to this level of sleuthing.

2. Silent Expectations

We all have them—unspoken rules and expectations that we hope you’ll pick up on without us having to say a word. From how you should act on a date to what we want in the relationship, these silent cues are our way of testing your ability to understand and meet our needs.

3. Mind-Reading Tests

After a deep conversation, we often replay it in our minds, dissecting every word and tone. We’re not just listening to what you said; we’re analyzing what you meant. This silent analysis helps us decide where we stand in the relationship, and what your words really say about your feelings.

4. Confidence Tricks

When we show up looking effortlessly put together, know that it didn’t just happen by accident. We have secret confidence boosters—whether it’s a specific outfit, hairstyle, or makeup routine—that make us feel like we’re on top of the world. But we’ll let you think it’s all natural.

5. Occasional Insecurities

Even the most self-assured among us have our insecurities. Whether it’s about our appearance, our career, or something more personal, we often keep these doubts hidden to maintain a strong front. If you catch a glimpse of our vulnerability, know that it’s rare and significant.

6. The Ex Comparison

No matter how much we like you, it’s hard not to compare you to our exes. We mentally weigh the pros and cons, considering how you measure up. But don’t worry—we keep these comparisons to ourselves, using them more as a way to gauge how much better this relationship is (or could be).

7. Strategic Vulnerability

We don’t always show our softer side right away. Vulnerability is something we reveal strategically, often when we feel safe and secure in the relationship. If we open up to you, it means we trust you deeply—so handle that trust with care.

8. Friend Filter

Our friends’ opinions of you are more influential than you might think. We value their input and often discuss our relationships with them before making any big decisions. But we may not always share just how much their approval (or disapproval) sways our feelings.

9. Unsaid Appreciation

We notice and appreciate the little things you do—whether it’s a thoughtful gesture or simply being there when we need you. However, we don’t always vocalize this appreciation, preferring to show it through our actions or a simple smile.

10. White Lies for Peace

To avoid unnecessary drama, we sometimes tell small white lies. Whether it’s about our mood, our plans, or our opinions, these little fibs are our way of keeping the peace and maintaining harmony in the relationship.

11. Memory of Details

We remember the small stuff—what you wore on our first date, the way you laughed at a joke, or a compliment you gave us months ago. These details matter to us, and we quietly store them away as part of our emotional memory bank.

12. The Fantasy File

We all have daydreams about ideal dates, romantic gestures, or what our future together might look like. These fantasies are usually kept private, serving as a way for us to imagine what could be—especially if we’re still figuring out where the relationship is headed.

13. Unvoiced Strengths

Sometimes we downplay our strengths, especially if we think they might make you feel less secure. Whether it’s our career success or personal accomplishments, we might not always highlight these achievements, preferring instead to keep the focus on the relationship.

14. Financial Independence Desires

While we appreciate when you treat us, many of us deeply value our financial independence. We often navigate this balance quietly, ensuring that we maintain our autonomy without disrupting the traditional gestures of romance.

15. Silent Treatment Clues

When we give you the silent treatment, there’s usually a reason—though we might not spell it out. It’s often our way of signaling that something’s wrong, giving you a chance to reflect and figure out what it might be. The silence is a test, but it’s also a chance for you to show how well you know us.

Understanding these secrets can offer you deeper insights into our thoughts, emotions, and the subtle dynamics that often go unspoken in relationships. Recognizing these unvoiced truths can strengthen your connection and help you navigate the complexities of love with more confidence and clarity.

#just girly things #girly stuff #girlblogging #girlhood #dating #energy #today #wellness #dating advice #understanding

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walviemort · 10 months ago

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Expecting a Secret [3/3]

Summary: After the events of 3x19, Killian is at his lowest after being rejected by Emma. When Snow’s labor turns out to be a false alarm, Zelena offers Killian a deal: she’ll leave the Charmings alone…if he gives her the baby she needs for her spell instead. There’s just one hitch: he has to keep it a secret. At least it will only take 10 days, right? a/n: Here’s the final part of my bday fic for @sancocnutclub !!! This is the full fic from the manip I posted last week. Hope you've enjoyed this little adventure! rated T | AO3 | 4.7k | part 1 | part 2

The next day was much of the same. Based on the book and his math, Killian was roughly around 32 weeks along—but found it hard to believe there was still time to go, based on his size. The new clothes he’d bought fit fine; it was just—so big, it seemed. His center of gravity had greatly changed and he felt terribly cumbersome. He didn’t think he was waddling yet, but he wasn’t moving with as much ease as he had just a few days ago.

He was just so keenly aware of all the changes going on within (and without, as he was reminded every time he passed a mirror—which was often) that he was losing in the effort to keep abreast of goings-on in the rest of town. Perhaps that was for the best; perhaps if he pretended he wasn’t here, others would forget as well and he could get through this without attracting any unnecessary attention.

He didn’t even draw the curtains to look outside, lest he risk anyone seeing him. But he didn’t need to open them to tell that it was a gloomy, overcast day; much the same as his mood. He was sore all over; it was impossible to get comfortable; the babe would not stop moving; and even the book he was trying to read couldn’t hold his attention (perhaps the title should have been Withering Heights instead).

Well, he was no stranger to brooding, so he gave himself over to that for the bulk of the day. By evening, he was in a terribly rotten mood that not even Oreos could soothe. He was looking forward to simply taking a bath—and hopefully getting some sleep—when there was a knock at the door. He sighed; he supposed that was inevitable—likely Granny ready to tell him off for all his pacing.

He cracked the door open enough to peek around and bit out a “What?” at his visitor.

“Jeez, I was just trying to invite you to dinner, not get my head taken off,” Emma rebuffed. “I thought this was Hook’s room; not Grumpy’s.”

“Ha,” he replied, unamused. “I’m afraid I’m still not quite fit for company.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Okay, something’s up. You don’t usually avoid us like this.”

“Is a man not permitted his solitude at times?”

“Not when he’s being fucking weird. What aren’t you telling me?”

He nearly spat out the truth, but managed to close his mouth before he slipped. “Why does it matter?” he retorted. “I thought you couldn’t trust me.”

His heart nearly broke at the way her face fell at that; it was a low blow, but half his frustration came from trying to keep his distance. He hated keeping this from her, especially when there was a significant chance it was going to cause more trouble for her later. But he couldn’t risk more harm to her or her family.

“I told you—” she started, in a small voice, but he cut her off.

“Aye, well, I don’t quite believe it yet,” he said. “Don’t worry about me; just focus on the witch. Good night.” He punctuated the statement by firmly closing the door.

He waited for the sound of her footsteps to move away—and really hoped that wasn’t a sniffle he heard through the walls—before he himself stepped back from the door—and brushed away his own tears.

Then he shuffled off to the lavatory and began to draw a bath, though he knew it wouldn’t make him feel any better for being an utter arse to the woman he loved. But, hopefully, it would keep her at bay until he got through this.

He hissed as the babe then sharply connected with his ribs, seeming to chastise him just as much as he was already doing to himself. “I know,” he muttered. “I’m a bloody bastard.”

Two more days. He could do it—right?

—---------------------------------------------

A sudden jolt of pain woke Killian the next morning. He was ready to strike out at Zelena again, but when his eyes flew open, no one was there. And yet, the ache persisted.

His entire midsection, globe that it was, felt like the muscles were clenched—but he didn’t know how to relax them. He took a few deep breaths, which eventually worked, but his stomach still felt sore (or, at least, more sore than it already felt with its fairly rapid expansion). What the bloody hell was that?

The pregnancy book was sitting on the bedside table; he immediately reached for it to skim through. (He hoped Belle wouldn’t mind how dog-eared and beat up it was becoming.) He was at, what, 35 weeks now?

Ah, right—practice contractions. Lest he forget, birth still lay ahead of him. He massaged his rounded belly, saying a silent prayer that the babe within didn’t grow much more; he wasn’t sure entirely how the little one was to emerge, given that he didn’t have the traditional parts for it, but perhaps it would be easier on him if they remained on the small size.

The day continued on much like the previous had, although the practice contractions kept catching him by surprise; he yelped more than a few times at them.

After one, he did hear footsteps rush to, and then pause outside his door. He knew the sound of Emma’s gait by this point, and waited to see if she did anything, but the floorboards creaked as she inevitably walked away.

Rather than frustrated, he was simply mad at himself for how he handled that interaction with her last night—but it had at least worked, so that was one less thing for him to worry about over the next day or so.

The next novel from Belle was much more enjoyable, even if he dozed off in the middle of reading. It felt like he was constantly on the edge of sleep, but the pregnancy manual had implied as much when he was as far into the third trimester as he was.

He was once more on the cusp of a nap when a persistent rapping sounding at the door—much different, and more forceful, than Emma’s usual (surprisingly polite) taps. Hopefully, whoever it was didn’t hear the groan as he shifted to standing; his belly was starting to drift southward as the little one moved closer to resting on his pelvis, and he could tell by the way they were wriggling that they were starting to run out of room.

Which meant it was getting harder to keep his bump from view of the door; he had to prop his left forearm on the edge of the frame to support himself this time. “Dave,” he greeted, surprised, when he cracked it open. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

David, however, seemed less than thrilled to see him. He crossed his arms and leveled a rather fatherly stare at him. “To figuring out what the hell is up with you.”

“I’ve just been feeling under the weather,” he said, thankful that Emma hadn’t inherited her lie-detecting abilities from her father, even it was somewhat true.

“And that’s reason to be a jerk to Emma? Especially when, for the last few weeks, you couldn’t seem to stay away from her?”

“No, it’s not,” he conceded. “I…intend to apologize once I’m feeling better; hopefully in a few days.”

David’s expression didn’t change. “You know, her last couple of magic lessons haven’t gone well.”

That made his heart sink in a different way, and he swore the babe was kicking nervously. “No?”

“No. She hasn’t been able to do much of anything with it. I think we all know what that means.”

Killian swallowed; any chance of defeating the witch—of keeping this child, and the Charming’s, safe—depended on her magic, as much as he hated to put it all on Emma’s shoulders alone.

“Is…is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, knowing full well he’d be useless for a bit more.

“You can pull your head out of your ass!” David hissed.

“Beg your pardon?”

The prince huffed and stared at the floor. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, and she’d probably kill me for it, but the reason she’s been having trouble is you.” He looked back up. “You’re good for her, much as I hate to admit it, and whatever the hell this is you’re doing? She’s worried. So…figure it out.”

Before Killian could come up with any sort of reply—not that he had one ready—another practice contraction hit, and he curled in on himself a bit as he winced.

“Shit—are you okay?” David asked, trying to look around the door.

“‘M fine,” Killian waved off. “Or I will be. Just a—stomach thing.” (A rather large stomach thing that was also pressing on his bladder—again.) “Besides—it’s not like she plans on staying anyways,” he finally threw back.

“Maybe she needs a reason to,” David countered. “Take care of yourself.”

He turned around and left, but Killian remained slightly stunned. Eventually, he did have to shut the door and head to the toilet, but David’s words lingered in his head. “ You’re good for her .”

Bloody hell, he really had been too rash in his agreement with Zelena. He should have known his tendency towards self-flagellation would mess things up one of these days. But there was nothing to be done at this point than to see it through, and just pray he could apologize to Emma fast enough to help get them out of this disaster.

The baby kicked against his side, and his hand flew to the spot without thought. The more time he spent with this little passenger, the more he also was determined to save them. He wasn’t sure he was prepared to be a father, given the low success rate of his past attempts at it, but he’d be damned if he let any harm befall his—and whoever else’s—child. “I don’t know what lays ahead, little one, but I’m going to do my best to keep you safe, too,” he murmured to the bump—and just hoped he hadn’t told yet another lie.

Quite obviously, his mood fell from whatever relative high it had reached that morning to the lowest of lows once more, especially with the continuation of the practice contractions.

He was laying listlessly on the mattress that evening, tracing the babe’s movements with his hand, when he heard a gentle knock. But he wasn’t fit for company and the lights were off, so hopefully they assumed he was asleep.

Outside the door, he easily recognized the sound of Emma sighing. “I know you’re in there, even if you can’t hear me right now,” she said. “Probably passed out, if you’re still really feeling bad. But I…I feel like it’s not just that,” she continued. “I don’t know what I did to make you pull away. Okay, I know some of it, but—something else happened. I just wish I knew. Because I miss you,” she confessed to his closed door. “And I want to be with you again. Or hang out or whatever.” She sighed again and he thought he heard her forehead clunk against the wood. “Well now I really know you’re sleeping, because that would have gotten your attention if you were awake. Probably for the best.” She paused again, then added “good night,” and he heard her move across the hall to her own room.

He suddenly sniffed; bloody hell, these emotional shifts were getting tiring. But he hated— hated —that he was the cause for her emotional distress, and worse, that it might have bigger implications for everyone else, including his child. (Perfect time for a practice contraction to start, eh?)

He’d well and truly fucked this up.

So he gave into his heightened emotions, curled in on himself (which was no small feat—nor very quiet on Granny’s mattress), and cried himself to sleep.

———————————

Rising from the bed the next morning was the most arduous it had been yet—not just because of his babe’s consistent growth, or the practice contraction that had once again woken him, but his belly had also finally “dropped”, as the book said; the little one was well and truly resting on his pelvis, getting ready to make their escape—which could happen at any moment, most likely.

His nerves were constantly on edge, consequently. The baby seemed to echo it—or was just anxious to get out; he wasn’t sure. But honestly, if it meant keeping them safe until the witch was defeated, he’d rather they stay there—safe—even if he was horrendously uncomfortable.

Until another practice contraction hit and the babe shifted atop his lower pelvis. Never mind; he wanted them out.

But for the first time, he realized just how alone he’d be for it. David hadn’t left Snow’s side when they were in the hospital, and he knew it was common for women to have any number of supporters during the process. But if he was still to be keeping it a secret…

However, that was when he heard Emma’s door open across the hall. What if he just…let the door open? Just a crack? It wouldn’t be his fault if she ended up barging in, would it?

He waddled to the door and unlatched the bolt, then reached for the knob—only for it to disappear as soon as his hand neared.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Zelena’s voice called out. He whipped his head and lifted his hook, ready to strike, but she wasn’t in the room. “That’s cheating,” she went on, and finally he saw her: staring out from the standing mirror next to his dresser. “Surely you can sit on this for just a few more hours; you’ve definitely kept other secrets longer.”

“What if something goes wrong?” he countered. “What if the child needs medical attention, eh? You really expect me to do the rest of this unsupervised?”

“Psh, you’ll be fine—I made sure of it when I cast the spell,” she waved off. “Just try not to get too loud, alright?”

“You know there’s a werewolf downstairs, right? They’ll probably hear.” The odds that he got through the day without Granny yelling at him for all the creaking he was causing were already slim.

“Oh, you’re right.” She waved her hand, and the walls briefly glowed green. “Silencing spell. Yell all you want, then; no one will hear it. See you in a few hours, Captain.” And then she disappeared from sight, leaving his own sorry reflection staring back at him, looking tired and morose.

He sighed and shifted his weight from side to side, observing his reflection as he did. Perhaps his belly wasn’t quite as big as it felt, but it did protrude quite a ways in front of him, fully rounding out his stomach and resting heavy on his hips. While bracing his lower back with his left wrist, he lifted his shirt to properly view his belly. There were quite a few stretchmarks along its lower curve, and his belly button even stuck out. The little one moved then, and he could see the whole thing eerily shift as they did.

Perhaps Zelena’s interruption had been good for another reason: did he really want to subject Emma to this view? Even he barely wanted to look at it, even if it held some novelty. But the babe wriggled again and he pulled his shirt back down; he could feel it plenty—he didn’t need to see the alien-like sight in better detail.

There was only one thing left to do at this point. He went to the odd canister by the door (he believed Henry had called it an “umbrella stand”) and retrieved his sword from its scabbard. He flexed his fingers around the grip and rested his brace on the apex of his bump. “Well, little love, wish us luck; I’m going to do my damnedest to keep you safe.” He liked to imagine the subsequent kick was an affirmative response.

(Not for the first time, he also wished he had a way of contacting Smee; the man would have easily been able to slip the child away safely. But he had no idea what digits to use on his room’s telephone. Alas.)

As the day wore on, the practice contractions got more consistent—and stronger. He wasn’t entirely sure what would mark the start of labor, so he continued to alternate resting and pacing as they went on.

More than once, he caught himself on one surface or another as they increased in intensity; this must be it then. He tried to skim over this section in the book, but couldn’t focus long enough for it to be of any use.

So he breathed, and paced, and rested, and breathed, and paced, and rested, with sips of water and restroom breaks scattered in as needed.

By mid-afternoon (he thought, at least, based on the light outside), he was sweating hard, gripping the back of a chair for support. It felt like the child was nearly ready to come out, but there was one thing that hadn’t happened yet.

It came on his next restroom trip, thankfully: his water broke. He didn’t even bother putting his pants back on, and his shirt had long since been hiked up above his belly (there wasn’t much sense in keeping it on but he needed something for whenever the witch showed up).

“Alright, little one; let’s do this,” he murmured, shuffling back to the main room (and his sword). But he hadn’t gotten very far before the next—and strongest yet—contraction stopped him in his tracks, drawing a shout and forcing him to curl in on himself, catching himself on the back of the chair for support.

Which of course was when the door to his room flew open.

Emma stood, staring at him, mouth agape. “Oh…oh my god,” she eventually stammered.

“Swan, I…” he started—but how the hell could he explain it?

Shockingly, he didn’t have to. “They were right; you’re pregnant. Holy shit.”

“They?” he asked, panting.

“Belle,” Emma explained, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. “And David. Just now—Belle mentioned the book you borrowed and my dad told us what happened when he saw you yesterday and—”

He didn’t mean to cut her off, but he yelled out as another contraction commenced. “You shouldn’t be here, love,” he said once his breath came back. “The witch—”

“Who gives a shit about her?” she said angrily, rushing to his side. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything!”

“I cou—ahhh!” Any attempt at explanation was cut off by the sudden increased intensity of his labor. “Love, just—go,” he tried to argue, but there was no strength behind it.

Not that she would have listened. “Like hell I will. I am not leaving you to do this on your own. Just tell me everything after, okay?” He nodded. “Okay. Let’s have a baby.”

(He desperately hoped it was hers, cruel as that might be.)

She reached for his hand and guided him to sitting on the chair. “How long have you been going?”

“I don’t know,” he had to answer. “It’s all happened so fast.”

“Really? God, mine felt like it took forever.”

“No—all of it,” he clarified in between breaths.

“Wait—all?” she asked, placing her free hand on his belly.

“Aye,” he confirmed. “Just the last 10 days.”

“Shit,” she said, but it could have also been a reaction to the way he suddenly gripped her hand fiercely as yet another contraction came; they were incredibly close together now. “Um, Killian, I—I have to look—” She didn’t finish her sentence, but pointed downward.

He nodded again, though it was undoubtedly a terrifying sight. She took her own deep breath and knelt in front of where he was perched on the edge of the chair; her eyes went wide when she got a look. (This was so far from what he’d hoped her first encounter with his private parts would look like.)

“Oh wow, you’ve gotta push,” she said, in a slightly panicked tone. “I can see the head.”

“I can certainly feel it,” he answered, trying for some levity. But then the next contraction came and he found himself bearing down unwittingly.

“Just like that,” she coached. “I’m right here.”

“You really don’t have to be.” He was trying to give her an out.

“Hey.” Now she was the one squeezing his hand, intensity in her green eyes. “I want to be.”

He managed to crack half a smile before his body forced him to push again—and again, and again. Emma gave enthusiastic encouragements the whole time but he was just in so, so much pain.

“The head is out; you’re almost there!” she exclaimed, unfortunately having to take her hand back. “Just a few more—you can do it.”

He could, and he did—but he wasn’t quiet about it. But finally, the babe was out—and he was spent.

“It’s a girl,” Emma said softly, and the little one began to cry—but he didn’t dare look, and instead focused on catching his breath.

He could see enough to notice Emma pulling the little one to her chest and moving closer to him.

“Oh, Killian,” she cooed. “She’s perfect.”

He was sure she was, but he couldn’t look. He couldn’t see the babe, because if he did, he knew he wouldn’t be able to let her go. And he quickly needed to build up the energy for a fight; his sword was sitting on the table next to him.

“Don’t you want to see her?” Emma asked softly. He just shook his head, feeling a tear crawl down his cheek.

“I can’t,” he murmured.

“Killian, what’s wrong? Do…do you not want to keep her?” There was no doubt that was giving her some unpleasant flashbacks of her own, even if it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“Oh, no—I think he does, and that’s wherein the problem lies.” Zelena had arrived—and was gloating, but unphased by the way he was now staring daggers at her (but still decidedly not looking at his daughter—bloody hell, he had a daughter).

“Go to hell, witch,” he spat, reaching for his blade.

“Someday, yes, but not now. Now, I think I’ll be taking what's mine.”

“She’s yours?” Emma exclaimed, holding the baby tighter to her and casting a questioning glance between Zelena and Killian. (Gods, they hadn’t even had time to cut the umbilical cord yet.)

“Well, not ‘mine’ mine. Biologically speaking. She’s yours, really,” she said, gesturing at both of them.

Did she just say…? “Mine?” Emma asked, surprised.

“Yes, indeed. And what beautiful babies you make,” the witch said, coming closer. “If I can’t have a child of confirmed true love, then one of potential true love will just have to do.”

Summoning energy from somewhere unknown, Killian grabbed his sword and stood, leveling the blade at Zelena’s neck. “Don’t you dare lay a finger on her,” he growled.

“That wasn’t part of the deal, Captain,” she hissed. “Unless you’d care to explain to the in-laws why I still kidnapped their baby?”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Emma interrupted, and faster than either of them were aware—in a flash of white light—Zelena was on the floor—and her broach was in Emma’s hand (the one that wasn’t still holding tight to his—no, their —baby).

“No—no, no, no!” the witch cried, seemingly attempting to summon the pendant back—do anything—with her magic. “Oh, you’ll pay for that,” she roared, pulling the Dark One’s dagger out—but Killian struck out at her arm before she could summon the Crocodile, making her drop it, and then kicked it away.

The witch let out a shriek—but it was cut off by a cloud of grey-ish magic. “Fat chance of doing anything to us from the cells below the hospital,” Emma quipped, then turned to Killian. “Are you okay? What the hell is going on?”

“A long story,” he sighed as he relaxed, adrenaline fading just as fast as it had come, his sword clattering to the floor. “One I will gladly tell you shortly; just—can I—?” He hoped the way he was reaching towards the babe finished the question for him.

“Of course,” she said warmly, putting the little girl in his arms. And he finally got to look at her, and, oh—she really was beautiful. She’d calmed down a little bit, at least since Zelena had been dispatched, and was looking around the room with large eyes; he hoped she’d inherit Emma’s color there, seeing as she had clearly acquired Killian’s own pointed ears.

His body was beginning to tell him there were some things that hadn’t yet been dealt with; he held the little lass as Emma helped him through that. “You wanna tell me just what all this was now?” she asked, firmly but gently, once things were cleaned up.

“I was a bloody idiot,” he summarized, but told her everything else that had happened since the night at the docks. “Swan, I cannot apologize enough for being such a fool. But…I also don’t fully regret it.”

“I get it,” she said, running a finger over their now-sleeping daughter’s head. “And I’m sorry for making you feel like you had nothing else. But…I guess I can’t complain about the product either.”

For a long moment, they just stood there—the three of them, in awe over their new little blessing. Aside from the incredible ache he felt, it was near perfect—and he was finally able to breathe for another reason (and not just because the precious little toes in his cradle were no longer digging into his lungs).

“Congratulations, love,” he said.

“For what? You just did all the hard work.”

“You defeated the witch. You saved this one, your new sibling, all of us,” he explained. “That’s something to be equally proud of, if not moreso.”

She blushed. “Yeah, but in the moment, all I could think of was saving her—and you.”

“Me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you. Did you not hear what Zelena said?”

He had, but he didn’t dare acknowledge it. So he just nodded.

“My magic has never been stronger than it was just now—especially not earlier this week.”

“Aye, your father said as much.��

“You know why?”

He was starting to get the picture, but wanted her to say it.

She chose not to use words, but actions, and leaned toward his face.

“Hold on—the curse,” he said, regrettably pulling slightly away.

“It should have gone away with her magic,” Emma said, “and I don’t care anyways.” Then she insistently pressed her lips against his and, bloody hell, he couldn’t remember a sweeter, more meaningful kiss.

Though he would have preferred it not be cut off by a sudden interruption from the doorway. David stood at the now-open threshold, coughing (and clearly averting his gaze). “Granny said she heard some weird stuff and made me come check it out. I think I saw too much, though.”

Emma laughed; Killian tried, but it hurt his core. “Come on; I never thought I’d say this, but we need to get you back into some pants and get you two to the hospital.”

He passed the baby to her while he shuffled around to get dressed, and she caught up with her father, who thankfully drove them both to Storybrooke General.

Dr. Whale was shocked by the turn of events and insisted on keeping both Killian and his daughter overnight for observation; Emma stayed by their side the whole time. (And used her magic to accelerate his healing a bit…well, a lot, thankfully, though he wasn’t sure his midsection would ever be as firm as it once was.)

There was still a lot to deal with—emotionally, obviously, and they had to decide just what to do with Zelena; not to mention Snow giving birth still lay ahead.

But as he walked out of the hospital the next morning—with Emma in one arm and tiny little Alice Margaret Jones, wearing her little sailboat onesie, in the other—he knew it would all work out; maybe, just maybe, this could be their happy ending.

----------------------------------------

thanks for reading!!! tags: @wyntereyez @jennjenn615 @superadam54 @ashley-knightingale @justsomewhump @killian-whump @teamhook @mathiaskejseren @88infinity88

#cs ff #killian mpreg #killian jones ff #expecting a secret #my ff

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howdy-folks-its-showtime · 7 months ago

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It's Showtime! - June 2024 Devlog

Howdy! Cobalt here, for another devlog over It's Showtime. This month was actually really swell, especially since I got more of my adhd meds recently. So I should be getting way more done in the coming months, yippee!

Programming wise, not a lot was done this month I've mostly spent it changing a few things about the way the map is built. Particularly I'm gonna need to rebuild most of the first floor. However in the long run it should be for the better, for stuff like performance and making it easier to add more to it. I also just needed a break after all I did last month. I have created things like the base for the main menu, a proper testing room and a lot of coding for the cut scene system though!

Writing wise, a ton of progress was made. Most of the major writing for Chapter 1 is done! Or at least on a great first draft. So very soon Chapter 1 will be done writing wise. [For the record currently the in depth writing for Chapter 1 is 7,122 words long] Chapter 2 also had a significant amount of its in depth writing done, almost all of the 'intro' is written out but obviously I'm trying to focus more on Chapter 1 right now. Speaking of the other chapters and such. Chapter 2's summary is almost done, with some things just needing some elaborating or bridging with other parts of it. Chapter 3 has 3 thousand words written in its summary currently, so a lot of what goes on in that chapter has been written out. I recently had a ton of revelations about what is going to happen in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 has also had a lot added to its summary. Sadly, writing wise, I simply cannot reveal much more without getting into spoilers.

I've also been learning Blender a lot lately. I'm working on a few models, none of them for It's Showtime quite yet. [well besides the walls and floors for the first floor] However soon I'm gonna be trying to make Henry's first model and animations for the game. Probably won't be the final one used for the project, or even the one you'll see upon chapter 1's release, but we'll see. Sadly, a lot of this process is simply tutorials and looking things up, then double checking those things to make sure they can be used in Unity, aren't performance heavy and will work with the systems I've already got in place. Art wise, me and my partner have gotten a lot of fun concept art done.

We've also started a sketchbook purely for Encore! related drawings. We've got so much fun stuff to show you guys when more is done, but for now, I'd love to show off a proper look at Henry's design.

Here we have Henry's reference, specifically for his in-game appearance.

The sketchy reference made for modeling him out. Yes, he is tastefully nude in this appearance. That's just the way it has to be.

Then finally a rough run cycle I animated to show off his character and as practice for when the proper 3D gets made. I'm really proud of how this came out and I hope it gives you guys a good idea for what to expect from him character-wise. As always, feel free to ask any questions about this project and its story if you'd like. I'll do my best to answer them without giving too much away! See you next month!

#it's showtime #not ask #Devlog #bendy and the dark revival #bendy and the ink machine #batim #batdr #Bendy Encore #Bendy fangame #queer horror #indie horror game #indie horror #mascot horror #mod whirly #warning for a bit of nudity/a shirtless henry

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perplexedflower · 2 years ago

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Last Floor To My Heart

Fandom: Supernatural RPF.

Category: F/M.

Relationship: Richard Speight Jr. x Female Reader.

Type: One shot.

Words: 4,855.

Summary: In a single night, [Y/N]'s life takes a turn for the worse; that is, until she goes seeking comfort in the arms of the only man who can make it all better.

~~~~~~~~~~

Everything happened so fast.

Restlessly sitting on the living room couch, my crossed legs could not stop fidgeting as I waited for Mark to come home. A few minutes earlier, he had called me to say he was on his way home, and that he had something important to tell me when he would be back. When I had asked him why he could not simply tell me over the phone, he had answered it was too significant not to be discussed face-to-face. I had not argued any further, but deep down I knew damn well it was not like him to say a thing such as that.

Mark and I had been dating for almost two years, and this time we had spent together had been good to us. We had met on the set of Supernatural, and back then, it was clear to everyone that we hit it off right away; I was introduced to the plot as an endgame character, so I made my debut near the last seasons of the show. However, I had still been given the opportunity to play alongside Mark, even if only for a few times. And although I was instantly charmed by his Lucifer, I got to know him personally over time and consequently fell for him beyond his character.

It had taken us a while to officially get together, but once we did, we never let go of each other. And we both believed things would grow and evolve between the two of us, shifting our relationship into something more and more serious as time would go on. At least, that is what I believed in until I started noticing a change in Mark's behavior, a change in the way he would talk to me, and act around me. I had always brushed that feeling aside, convincing myself it was only a misinterpretation, a fabrication of my own paranoid mind. But with one simple phone call, all my suspicions had come flowing back up to the surface, and it was becoming hard to ignore them.

As I was getting deeply lost in thought, I suddenly heard the front door open and turned around, only to see Mark enter the living room in somewhat of a rush.

"Hey." He promptly let out without even looking at me.

"Hey..." I awkwardly said back.

I was searching for his eyes, but it was clear to me he was trying to avoid making eye contact with me.

"So... you wanted to tell me something?"

My stomach felt like a tangled bag of knots, hurting my guts, which had a bad feeling about what was about to take place.

"Yeah, we need to talk."

This sentence alone made me gulp and look down at my feet.

"Listen, [Y/N]..." Mark started with faint remorse. "I'm sorry... It truly pains me to say it, as much as it will pain you to hear it, but... we should break up."

I blankly stared at him, in a complete state of shock.

"But—"

"No." He cut me off with a sigh. "It's for the best, trust me."

What? Why? How? Have I done something wrong? Have you met another woman? Do you not love me anymore?

Questions began piling up in my mind, so many questions I wanted to ask him. But I was rendered unable to speak.

"I'm sorry." He said once more, still looking away from me.

His apologies were not fully sincere, I could feel it, I knew him well enough to feel it. But still, I was not able to talk back. All I could do was cry. And so I did: I cried miserably on this couch, feeling sorry for myself, wondering how pathetic Mark must have found me. As my thoughts started to overwhelm me, I finally managed to stand up and walked to our bedroom without a word. I grabbed my suitcase and my duffle bag and put them both on the bed; I rapidly gathered my things, which I had scattered across the room, and stuffed them all back inside my luggage. There was not much to collect, just the essentials: clothes, a book, and my computer. But I refused to leave in this house the only few things I had brought with me. I knew I was no longer wanted here; I knew I had to get out of there.

I quickly changed my clothes and put on a t-shirt, a pair of jeans, a jacket, and shoes. I zipped and closed both my suitcase and bag, before leaving the room with them in hand. As I walked to the front door, I came back into the living room, and Mark stood up as he saw me, ready to go, my hand on the knob.

"[Y/N]—"

"No, don't say anything." I said while crying, interrupting him. "That's what you wanted, for me to go away. So that's what I'm doing."

And with that, I opened the door and stepped outside, after which I closed it right back behind me. Standing in front of the house, I let my luggage fall on the ground beside me and grabbed my head with my hands as I cried more tears.

How did this happen? And why?

I regained my composure and wiped away my tears, before picking up my suitcase and my bag. I took a few steps away from the house and looked around: I had nowhere to go. Mark's house was not very far away from the city center, so I decided to take a night walk. I had always loved walking down the streets at night. But not in this particular state of mind. Not while emotionally devastated.

After a few minutes of aimless strolling, I entered the heart of the city and started seeing all types of people walking up and down the streets, going in and out of restaurants, shopping, and simply minding their own business. As an extroverted person, it had never bothered me much to be around masses of people, and at that very moment, it even allowed me to lose myself among them: I could have cried, nobody would have noticed.

I still had no idea what to do or where to go, wandering alone in the crowded streets. But as I turned my head to the right, my eyes fell on an imposing hotel, illuminated by gorgeous lit-up fountains and surrounded by various types of floral decorations. And that was when I remembered.

Richard. That's the hotel Richard's staying in.

Similarly to Mark, I had met Richard while working on Supernatural; and similarly to Mark, Richard and I had become close friends in only a matter of weeks. After the show had ended, we stayed in touch, and over time, we started to hang out more and more. We eventually began working on common projects together, though they were all silly and for our own amusement. But it led us to have somewhat of a reputation as a duo, to the point of being cast as the two main protagonists in a brand-new TV show. We obviously both accepted, and this new shared adventure had brought us yet even closer to each other.

It had now been some time since we had started working together on the series, and it had taken us to Los Angeles, where we had to shoot for about a week. The production crew had decided to put both of us up in a hotel, but I had told them not to book me a room since I knew Mark resided in town and that I could spend the nights over at his place. Production had accepted my request and ended up booking a single room for Richard, although they had told me it went against regular policy.

Standing in front of the hotel, I looked back on how I had thanked the crew for making an exception. But as I now felt lonely and abandoned, I wished I had not said anything and just accepted the hotel room from the get-go. With my suitcase in my left hand and my duffle bag over my right shoulder, I walked up to the entrance of the hotel and stopped in front of the security guarding the doors. Since I had no room registered to my name, I had not been granted access to the hotel, but Richard had given me an extra entry pass, in case I would need or want to see him in his hotel room.

I presented the pass to the guard and was let inside; walking in, I was instantly blinded by the bright lights emanating from the chandeliers mounted on the ceiling, which contrasted sharply with the darkness outside. For a second, I thought about giving Richard a call, to let him know I was on my way to his room; but given how emotionally weakened I was, I felt I would not be able to speak over the phone, so decided against it. I made my way to the elevator and tried to remember on which floor his room was as I stepped inside; after having searched deep enough in my memory, I pressed the button to the third floor and went up with the elevator. Once on the third floor, the elevator doors opened and I took a step into the bright red hallway.

I slowly walked up to his room and stopped at the door, my luggage in hand, my vision blurry, and my mind blown away. I leaned forward and knocked twice on his door with a shaky hand.

"Who is it?" I heard Richard's voice ask from far away.

"Richard... It's me..." I tried to speak loud and clear.

"... [Y/N]?" He asked with surprise, recognizing my voice. "Hang on."

Inside the room, I could hear fast and loud footsteps, and in a matter of seconds, the door opened widely: I was faced with Richard, staring into my eyes, visibly worried. The door had only just opened that I immediately fell into his arms, my body going limp.

"Woah— Hey, hey." He let out as he caught me by the shoulders. "[Y/N], what's wrong?"

A simple look into his eyes was enough to make him understand I was unable to speak, so he took from my hands the suitcase and bag I was carrying and put them both inside, by the door.

"C'mon, come inside." He said gently as he held me by the arms.

Once inside, he closed the door behind us and made me walk to the couch, before helping me sit down next to him. When he understood I could not stop crying, he put a delicate hand over my knee, which made me look up and into his shining eyes.

"Can you talk?" He started softly. "Do you want to talk? I'm not forcing you if you don't want to or don't feel like it."

Despite how pathetic and pitiful I was feeling mentally, my face still managed to shape my lips into a smile that I sent his way, alongside a nod. Richard and I had been really good friends ever since we had first met, for what seemed to me like forever, and he had always been so caring towards me. Every time I needed someone's presence, he was that someone. That someone who I knew would always be there for me.

I stared back at him and was pained to see how sad he was to see me in such a state.

"It's Mark..." I tried to say, a tear stuck in my throat. "... We broke up."

Richard stared at me in a way I could not describe: he seemed sad, shocked, and for some reason, angry.

"... What?" He finally said after a few seconds of silence.

"He told me it's what's best for us..."

He grabbed his forehead with a sigh, visibly pensive, before turning to me swiftly. He leaned closer to me and hugged me tight, wrapping me in his embrace to try and help me calm down. I felt at peace in his arms. I had always felt comfortable in Richard's arms. But never before had I craved his touch so badly. I grabbed tight onto his back as I allowed myself to cry more tears on his shoulder, my head resting against the crook of his neck. Mark's words had rendered a part of my soul cold and empty, but Richard's warmth was the only remedy I needed to fix it.

He passed a hand on my back, rubbing it back and forth, in hopes of stopping my tears from flowing.

"Shh, shh..." He lulled me softly.

His soothing shushing resonating through my mind, I lost myself in his embrace and kept holding him close, making him understand I did not want him to let go. We remained in each other's arms for a few silent minutes, until he pulled away gently and grabbed my shoulders with care: he looked at me straight in the eyes once more, and when I gazed inside his, it was as if an electrical shock was traveling through my entire body.

"Are you feeling any better?" He asked me with a faint smile.

"I don't know..." I answered honestly while shaking my head slowly.

Richard tucked a strand of hair behind my ear while slightly tilting his head to the side.

"What would help you feel better? What do you want, right now?"

My eyes were still interlocked with his, but my mind went elsewhere.

What do I want?

I asked myself the same question he had just asked me, but was somehow unable to come up with a definitive answer: instead of giving him a verbal response, I stared into his whiskey-colored eyes as I grabbed one of his hands with both of mine. His gorgeous face lit up with a stunning smile I had had the chance to see so many times before, but never had enough of.

"Well, in any case, I do know what you'd need right now." He started, backing away from me a little. "What do you say I make you a cup of tea, and go fetch you a blanket or two?"

I giggled softly at his offer and the sound of my own laughter made me realize I was starting to feel better.

"I say I'd very much appreciate it." I replied with a warm smile.

"Alright, I'll get on it right away then." He smiled back. "The tea might take a while to get ready, so don't hesitate to walk around and stretch your legs a bit."

"Good idea." I said as I stood up from the couch at the same time as him.

While Richard left the room, I took a look around, and only then did I realize his hotel room was not even a single room, but a suite. I spotted three other rooms, in addition to the living area: a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom. I made my way to the bathroom while taking in everything around me.

"Damn, Rich..." I said out loud, addressing him even though he was not in the room with me. "They gave you a full-on suite."

"I know, right?" I heard him chuckle from another room.

I stepped inside the bathroom and passed a hand over the wall as I scoffed lightly.

"I can't believe I'm missing out on all of this." I murmured to myself somewhat disappointedly.

Walking deeper into the bathroom, I approached the sink and stopped in front of the mirror above it.

Jesus Christ...

"... I look like shit." I finished my thought aloud.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples with a sigh.

"And to think Richard had to see me like that..."

Opening my eyes back up, I looked more closely at my eyes and the ruined mascara around them.

I'll remove my makeup and clean my face a little, hopefully that'll make me look less miserable.

I made my way back to the front door and picked up my suitcase and my duffle bag: I carried them over to the living area, and set them both down on the floor next to the couch, before unzipping the suitcase, which contained a makeup bag. As I was about to leave the room, my makeup bag in hand, I noticed a blanket and a couple of pillows on the couch, which had not been there before. I smiled and headed back to the bathroom, but stopped by the kitchen this time; leaning a shoulder against the wall behind me, I observed Richard meticulously preparing my tea, softly humming a tune to himself, and felt my cheeks get hotter and hotter the longer I stared at him.

Before he got the chance to turn around and spot me, I kept on walking and entered the bathroom once more. I set my pouch down and opened it to take my makeup remover out, and started cleaning my face. After I had removed all traces of makeup from my face, I splashed some cold water on it, after which I dabbed on my skin with a fresh towel hanging beside the sink. With my face now cleaned and dried up, I took another look at myself in the mirror.

"Well... it's considerably better." I told myself with a sigh.

I put my makeup remover back into my makeup bag and exited the bathroom, and once I was in the living room again, I placed my bag back inside my suitcase. With that done and out of the way, I sat down on the couch once more and let my body relax at the contact of the soft blanket and pillows: just as I was getting comfortable, Richard entered the room, a warm smile on his face and a cup in hand.

"Tea's ready." He said as he walked up to me.

He sat down next to me and held out the mug before my hands.

"Here. Careful, it's hot."

"Thanks."

We exchanged smiles as I grabbed the mug from his hands, but our eyes left each other and my cheeks reddened when my fingers went brushing against his, his skin feeling hotter to the touch than the tea itself. I kept the cup in my hands for a while without actually drinking from it, taking in the heat from the ceramic, and feeling it spread throughout my body. As I took the first sip, I looked back at Richard.

"It's delicious." I told him with a sincere smile.

"It's the one I always make you when you're feeling down, but I perfected it by adding a few drops of honey and milk this time." He said with a sense of pride.

"Well, I love this new specialty of yours." I chuckled gently. "And I hope I'll get to taste it again in the future."

"I'll make you as much as you want. Even when you're not feeling down."

Perhaps it was the sip I had just swallowed, or the syrupy-sweet tone of his voice, but when I heard Richard's words, I felt my throat heat up and spread this heat across my face. Holding tight the mug in my hands, I dared look up and into his honey-colored eyes, sweeter than the honey in my tea. But once I had started staring into them, it was impossible for me to look away; stickier than nectar, they kept me unable to move or fight my way out of them, forcing me to lose myself deeper in them.

And if it had not been for him breaking our stare and looking away, I would have remained stuck into his gaze for all eternity.

"Alright, finish your tea up." He told me as he cleared his throat. "You've gotta rest a little, now."

I blinked a couple of times, pulling myself out of my reveries, and did as I was told. As I took the last sip from my mug, he grabbed the blanket he had brought over and carefully laid it over me, before taking the now-empty cup from my hands.

"If you can, try and take a nap. I know it's still early for sleep, but you've been through a lot tonight, you need to rest. Even just for a short while."

He stood up from the couch, the mug in hand, and turned to me.

"If you need me, or anything, I'll be in my bedroom, all right?"

"All right." I nodded.

As I watched him begin to leave the room, a voice inside of me reached out to him.

"Rich, wait." I suddenly said.

He stopped walking and turned around, only to meet my smiling face.

"Thank you, for everything."

A loving smile took shape on his face at the same time his cheeks got riddled with blush. Turning back around, he flipped the light switch off and headed for his bedroom, leaving me alone in the living room. I lay down across the couch, finding warmth in the cozy blanket covering my body, and closed my eyes with a yawn. As if he was still on the couch with me, I could smell Richard's cologne surrounding me, wrapping me in a feeling of reassurance. Everything around me felt so snug, so homelike, that I fell asleep right away.

When I opened my eyes again, I felt somewhat disoriented, but also revitalized. I reached out for my right jacket pocket and pulled my phone out to look at the time, and saw my good rest had lasted over half an hour. I stretched my arms and legs before slowly rising into a sitting position, and pushed the blanket aside. I rubbed my eyes while yawning then decided to take my phone out once again, this time to check if I had any potential notifications; but before I could even unlock my phone, I was distracted by Richard's voice, conversing with another, awfully familiar one, breaking the silence reigning throughout the entire suite.

I quietly stood up from the couch and as I slowly stepped toward his bedroom, the two voices got louder, deeper, and angrier. Not wanting to interrupt and make my presence known, I stopped around a corner of the wall and observed from afar.

"What's the deal with [Y/N]?" I saw Richard angrily ask the phone he was holding up to his ear.

"What happened between her and I is none of your goddamn business." I recognized Mark's voice on the other side of the line. "Besides, why are you even concerned about that? You should be happy, now she's all yours."

"I have the right to know. And I don't want her to be 'all mine'. She's not a plaything, Mark. You've treated her like a toy for so long, and now you've broken it."

"You think I take pride in what I've done? No, but it was for the best."

Before Richard could add anything else, Mark abruptly hung up on him, putting a forced end to their conversation.

"Bastard..." He murmured to himself as he glared at the phone.

Quietly standing still, I watched him sit down on the edge of his bed, before setting his phone aside and burying his face in his hands; hesitantly, I took a few steps forward and gently knocked on his wide-open bedroom door, revealing myself.

"Rich..." I said in a low voice.

The second he heard the sound of my voice, he looked up and met my eyes, before standing up quickly.

"[Y/N]—" He exclaimed as he walked toward me. "How long have you been up? Are you feeling any better?"

"I am, that nap felt really good." I answered him with a forced smile.

He smiled back at me, but we both knew that neither of our grins was heartfelt: mine slowly vanished as I stared into his eyes intensely.

"Listen, Rich..." I started awkwardly. "I... I heard you talk with Mark over the phone..."

His smile faded away and he instinctively avoided looking into my eyes as he backed off slightly; but I could not bring myself to divert my sight from him, and with the both of us staying silent, I could feel the uneasiness settle between us.

"Do you mind... explaining to me what Mark meant when he said what he said about you?" I shyly spoke up.

Richard exhaled heavily as he grabbed the back of his neck with one hand.

"[Y/N], I..."

He tried to speak, but I could read in him the struggle he was going through to find the right words to use: he did not finish his sentence and instead left it hanging, letting silence take over once more.

"You should be happy, now she's all yours."

This one sentence kept resonating in my head, and the more I was hearing it, the more I was beginning to accept it.

"I know what Mark meant, Rich." I said gently as I took a confident step forward. "But I want to hear it from you."

He finally looked up at me, and before he even said a word, I could read the love in his eyes, and I could feel it spread over to mine.

"I love you, [Y/N]." Richard confessed with a deep breath. "I always have. Since the first time we met, since the very moment I saw you, I've always felt this way about you. And, when you and Mark got together, I promised myself I'd keep my feelings hidden and away. The last thing I wanted was to ruin your relationship by interfering... Mark eventually figured it out a couple of weeks ago."

Listening to him pour his heart out to me, I could feel each and every single one of his words was truly sincere.

"[Y/N]... I'm so sorry to burden you with all this... You shouldn't have to sit through my rambling, after what you've just gone through with Mark—"

"No." I suddenly interrupted him.

His eyes opened wider in surprise, and the gleam visible inside of them was a sign he would have begun shedding a tear if I had not stopped him from talking further. I felt my cheeks flush as I took a step in his direction.

"I... I love you too." I shamefully admitted. "Like you, I always have. Something inside of me triggered when I first talked to you. But... I've always been unsure of my feelings for you, unsure of their true nature... It's always been in and out for me. Then, Mark came pretty early on, so I think my brain just... unconsciously pushed these feelings aside. But they've always been there. They never left."

Staring into his sparkling eyes, I felt the atmosphere surrounding us becoming heavier than ever.

"... I never knew you felt this way about me." I shook my head slowly. "But now, it just feels like it makes all the sense in the world..."

Losing some of my confidence, I looked down at my feet and sighed.

"God, I feel so stupid... I've been oblivious this whole time, I should've seen—"

"[Y/N]." He cut me off gently. "Don't blame yourself, please."

"No, I have my share of responsibility in this, Rich. If I had noticed your feelings for me right away, then... maybe... we could've—"

Before I could finish speaking, my cheeks were cupped by two strong hands, before I felt Richard's lips against mine. The contact of our skins against one another was so sudden, that I could not help but let out a soft, high-pitched moan as we kissed. It was such a passionate kiss, radiating love, yet it felt as though it was the softest I had ever received. Just as my limbs started relaxing and my lips began taking part in the action, Richard pulled away after only a few seconds, leaving a part of me frustrated and wanting more. He shook his head repeatedly as he pressed one of his hands on his forehead.

"Shit— I'm sorry, I shouldn't have, this is too soon—" He stuttered.

"No— I mean, yes—" I stammered as well. "But, to be honest... I think we both wanted it to happen."

We awkwardly stared at each other, our bodies still so close, which allowed me to see his slightly blushing cheeks and made my heart flutter.

"And, besides... even if it can't happen now doesn't mean it can't ever happen again at a later time..." I shyly added.

I lowered my gaze a little and delicately grabbed one of his hands with one of mine, before looking back up into his gorgeous eyes.

"When you asked me earlier, I didn't have an answer, but now, I know what I want."

Richard scoffed gently and smiled as he intertwined his fingers with mine.

"I'll need some time to heal from Mark, Richard. But I know I'll heal faster with you by my side."

As we held each other's hands, the warm smiles we exchanged made us both understand we were making the promise of being honest with ourselves and each other from there on.

"Then I'll never stray away from you."

#richard speight jr.#richard speight jr. x reader #richard speight jr. x you #richard speight jr. fanfiction #richard speight jr. fanfictions #richard speight jr. one shot #richard speight jr. one shots #richard speight jr. imagine #richard speight jr. imagines #supernatural rpf #supernatural rpf fanfiction #supernatural rpf fanfictions #supernatural rpf one shot #supernatural rpf one shots #supernatural rpf imagine #supernatural rpf imagines #spn rpf #female reader #perplexedflower

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ccaptain · 7 months ago

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''Kaeya Alberich'' and his Experience in becoming a ''being'':

Now that we have thrown the bases for what a ''being'' essentially is, how it works and the hierarchy of the Fictionologist, we can talk about ''Kaeya''. Or better: we can talk about what happened before he took the identity upon himself.

He was a bright child with a different name and different looks than what he's known for now, with nothing but Gallagher and Siobhan in his life after the former came to take him away from his crumbling homeplanet and took him to the reverie, where he grew taken care of and prepared as a future Emanator.

There was a fruitful journey ahead of him trying to save humanity from a past mistake that the people of his homeplanet made. It seemed to him like a big adventure at his age. After all the preparations, I want to say that he felt ready and excited, without the jitters of fear poisoning the experience.

I really want to say that. But he was indeed a bit afraid, because it started small. Small, sudden, and a much advanced age that he predicted it would happen- so he was fully developed into his own person, when the process began. It's always more difficult when it starts at this point, when an individual has already manifested with his own personality.

Slowly, very slowly- he realized that situations that would have drawn an emotional response out of him- a startled cry of fear at a particulary horrific scene in an horror movie, a long coming-from-the-belly laugh due to his dad's antics, bursting into tears for something emotional- slowly stopped doing that. It happened so gradually, with the startled cries reduced to a jolt, with the full laughs that he had into a polite chuckle, with the sobbing simply a watering of the eyes that could be easily subdued with a small distraction.

He attributed this to a shift of interests as he was growing, starting to use logic to justify things changing with him having no power to stop them. He tried to watch increasingly horrifically horror movies, to chase funnier things to make himself laugh, and to cause himself anger- but the response was always lacking. He understood what that meant- but it wasn't, by no means, less scary to see it finally happening.

He started to lose appetite and thirst as time went on. He no longer needed food to survive, and it didn't mattered if he really ate or drank healthy or unhealthy things- he has tried to drink motor oil, to draw a reaction out of his body, and didn't left any significant effects on him except for a slight queasiness that passes fast. Three days without sleeping at night didn't affected him in the slightest, either. when he tried to go on for a week, the result was much the same. He kept experimenting with how long he could go without any sort of rest, and found out that it no longer mattered- he could have ceased sleeping all together, and still would have kept going.

Who was before ''Kaeya'' started experimenting with what his limits were, and found himself unstoppable. There was no pain in physical harm- no blood was shed from a gash or cut. He developed an amazing capacity at physical recovery, the grey materia floating around the wounded area before starting to reattach and reform it in place, with the worst wounds having to be cured by the water of the Misty Sea. He didn't knew how to react to this change- only that it was what he was supposed to happen. But, until now, it was all things that were supposed to happen, mild things he could handle.

Then, the real deterioration started. And he had no way to stop it.

In situations where he would have once known what to say, words started to slip between his fingers as he was about to say them. He found himself stopping mid-sentence increasingly often, distracted on either an object or another line of thoughts, unable to pick the previous one back up.

He was no longer able to recognize social cues given to him or shown around him unless all of his focus was on analyzing them out of people- and by doing that, he was forgetting himself and furthering the process of burning away. With time, simple sentences became mono-syllabic responses with no emotions in them. And after some more time, he only knew how to be silent and stare, deeply engrossed in analyzing behaviors he no longer recognized as his own, avid to learn those back.

Time also seemed to slow down for him- an entire night would pass and find him busying himself with any task he could do to keep his mind off things, feet constantly in movement, body consistently busy with something. Mostly reading- mostly fixing things. Mostly tidying things. Righting. Steadying.

The exact things he could not do to himself. It was him coping with events in his life. It still is, to this day.

He had started to forget what his biological parents looked or sounded like. But that mattered little, for Gallagher as his father and mentor was all that he knew and all that he would need to know. This was the thing that worried him less- the memories of a terrifying event just before happiness came in the form of Gallagher and Siobhan and the reverie, and parties, and his mentor's creepy tricks being taught by him, and chocolate milkshakes until he was being scolded by her for drinking too many and getting a tummy ache.

He felt less and less human every year that passed.

Every month, a little less. Every week, less. Every day, even less. Instead of asking, which he no longer could do, for a comfort that he was no longer sure what it meant, he started to simply letting himself float in a mildly awed haze at how the process of becoming a non-human Emanator worked.

And when one day he rose from his bed, as he did every other morning after a sleepless night. He looked at his hands and thought that they were no longer his. This was not his body, not anymore. This was not him, and never would be again- as what that he remembered being ''him'' had left.

So it began the first stage of a ''being''.

While I make this sound fast-paced and linear, this change in who he was before ''Kaeya'' took place over many, many years- from his teenagerhood well into his adulthood in terms of human years, at the very least, and certaintly much earlier before he even considered becoming ''Kaeya'' at all- so ''it'' had no avatar to take as its identity, hindering the process of reacquiring the traits he had lost.

By now, he was simply a vague human-like shaped figure that existed, two burning, mismatched diamonds as eyes the only sign of who he was.

( one of ''it''s earliest memories is seeing Siobhan staring back at him, and falling to her knees a moment after, numb. It remembers hearing her ask what have we done to him, Gallagher? what have we done? and him quietly answering our job to her; not understanding why she sounded so sad and defeated.

This is one of the reasons that the present Kaeya avoids coming home too much. )

There's something so, so uncanny about him having lost the qualities that made ''it'' human. Many Fictionologists coming to see it thought so, too.

Despite ''it'' being assigned to the Fictionologist ''Gallagher'' ever since human, many others were curious about the newly-born ''being'' as usual. Unfortunately, the ''being'' was also curious about them as if any other ''being'' trying to relearn itself- it never brought harm to anyone, but how it moved and expressed itself were... uncontrollably creepy, and vastly different from other ''beings'' known until now, who would be still until approached and would limit themselves to staring back.

Even from afar, it would cover the distance between the curious and unfortunate soul trying to approach it by what was essentially bending reality to shift from place to place- not quite a teleport, but moving in an incredibly fast way and making the air where it stood move strangely around itself. It would stand uncomfortably close to the person, almost nose to nose, tilting its head in fast movements and angling it to avidly study their expression and reactions. Curious Fictionologists were being slowly circled around, studied by ''it'' when they wanted to be the one studying, and found it uncomfortable. ''It'' would crane its neck abnormally close to their face, admiring the changes and shifts in their expressions without a single sound- just two mismatched diamonds that felt like burns into their soul. Many human Fictionologists would walk away from the experience a bit shaken, despite having reported to sense no hostility coming from the ''being''- just a deep curiosity. But for the ones who usually studied, to be studied in return was a shock.

Despite the initial fear, it was still a ''being'' and had to learn, too. So it was allowed to stand in the shadows as long as it didn't interrupted anyone's work, admiring others at work with its head slighty tilted to the side. Admiring their reactions, their usual routines, their precision.

The ''humanswatching'' had begun.

It started with old movies, podcasts, television programs and series. It would curl on the couch and be left alone for hours to perouse various medias, one after the other. Never tired. Never stopping. One after another until it could get its hands on more. It rewinded movies endless times or played those from the middle until satisfied- until it could successfully mimick a behavior, or an emotion it liked, until it was ingrained in its brain how to reproduce it. It would parrot phrases and tones of voices for hours, if it wanted to.

( Siobhan would often sit beside it, bringing what used to be her sweet baby boy a bowl of chocolate ice cream, to get him used back to the taste. You're going to eat so much of this, when you get better at this whole ordeal.

Perhaps this is why it's still Kaeya's favorite dessert to eat. )

It was during a curious trip in the Memokeepers territory that he found a particular dreambubble. A dreambubble depicting what was known as Teyvat, a planet long by destroyed, and the lives of many people. Inside the bubble, there was a cobalt-haired individual that caught its attention. This is a story that has been explained already- how ''it'' became not Kaeya Alberich, but ''Kaeya Alberich''.

He roused from a light slumber in a body that felt comfortable, yet uncomfortable at the same time.

When he stammered to the bathroom mirror, thrown off by the sudden shift of height, a different yet familiar face was staring at him with the same, slighty surprised expression that he was sporting.

He looked at his hands, and had the thought of these hands are the hands of my good friend, Kaeya. I'd better keep them safe.

He watched the callouses over the palms of his new hands, the complex lines human anatomy drew in his new palms, digits that moved to his command- he rolled a long strand of blue hair around his fingers, marveling at the softness of it, and admired old scars that he knew the stories of. He tilted his head to admire the complex shell of his ear, the earring weighting his lobe down with a new, curious sensation. He ran a finger over the softness of his eyebrows, the slighty crooked line of his nose, the moles on what he could see of his new body- and then, he locked eyes with who was in the mirror.

An human stranger was returning his mismatched look of puzzlement among cobalt locks.

His shoulders sagged with relief.

When ''Kaeya'' exited his room and went back home to the reverie, he could speak like an human again. He had another voice and another appearence entirely, somehow that mattered so little but so much at the same time.

He looked at his father and mentor, hesitated in contemplation of what to say, and then turned towards Siobhan. He said ''I'm back, mom. I'm sorry I made you worry.''

( For once she didn't reminded him of not calling her mom. She just held him so hard she almost bruised the new skin he had. )

The aftermath is known. He was dressed fashionably by Siobhan, and sent to the journey he was so excited about as a kid, to pursue his goal.

Millennias would come to pass with ''Kaeya'' traveling among planets to learn anything he could- from human to animal behavior, from math to physics, from cooking to singing to playing an instrument, learning a sport, to fix things, to keep himself occupied when Mythos didn't signaled him the proximity of a memory to fog. He kept himself busy and always occupied, busy and always moving. He re-learned emotions. He has met with people, and came to understand many things regarding humanity. But not himself.

He is, now and until major forces strip this identity away from him, ''Kaeya Alberich'': an identity in which he's both comfortable and uncomfortable with in in a bittersweet way ad that he's familiar with- his old self has been burned away permanently, with a few problems along the way: the goal he chases is becoming empty, guided by the memories of a planet he once recalled fondly a distant, hazy dream-like thought at the back of his mind.

There's no fall back plan, no identity to come back to: becoming a ''being'' has burned who he was away forever. It's been such a long time he spent existing that he remembers nothing before the man called ''Gallagher'' took him as one of his strays, and grew him as his own son- and the adventures he underwent after acquiring his new identity. The Enigmata took everything away from him, and gave very little back but a new identity he had to discover- and powers he could have never imagined for himself.

''Kaeya'' had no choice but to take what was offered.

And even after he took what made him comfortable enough, if asked about his past, there'd be some hesitation and shame in admitting that... no, he remembers nearly nothing of it. Only the idea of his birth planet, but not his bio parents, not whatever struggle he may have had to face when the Great Catastrophe hit. All that he remembers is the present, and his journey as a ''being'' of the Enigmata.

While it may feel like something to dodge a conversation, Kaeya's expression would reveal no lie being told- nothing of the sort. Simply shame and confusion for missing memories. Worse: a ''being'' that remembers can become the worst enemy of itself. Was Kaeya to finally remember who he was in his entirety before the process of becoming a ''being'', he would simply cease to exist.

Such is the life under Mythus.

It's an... interesting topic for conversation. Perhaps in front of a campfire, with the right questions and amount of patience necessary to discuss it.

#from another realm ━ (ooc)#you no longer know me; shrouded in the fog of mystery ━ (H:SR V. Headcanons)#wow this got long! forever not sorry. ngl this was fun to write and after having slept on it im MUCH happier with it #sb: haha losing ones identity :')#me: haha...... what if LITERALLY......... losing ones identity... oops its gone now. forever #ask to tag ;;#body horror ;;#uuuhhh uncanny??? how do i tag this #theres a lot of unreality mentions idk. im old

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